Tarhana is a dried food ingredient, based on a fermented mixture of grain and yoghurt or

fermented milk Fermented milk products or fermented dairy products, also known as cultured dairy foods, cultured dairy products, or cultured milk products, are dairy foods that have been fermented with lactic acid bacteria such as ''Lactobacillus'', ''Lactococc ...

, found in the cuisines of Central Asia, Southeast Europe and the Middle East. Dry tarhana has a texture of coarse, uneven crumbs, and it is usually made into a thick

soup Soup is a primarily liquid food, generally served warm or hot (but may be cool or cold), that is made by combining ingredients of meat or vegetables with stock, milk, or water. Hot soups are additionally characterized by boiling soli ...

with water, stock, or milk. As it is both acidic and low in moisture, the milk proteins keep for long periods. Tarhana is very similar to some kinds of kashk. Regional variations of the name include Armenian թարխանա''tarkhana''; Greek τραχανάς ''trahanas'' or (ξυνό)χονδρος ''(xyno)hondros''; Persian ترخینه، ترخانه، ترخوانه ''tarkhineh, tarkhāneh, tarkhwāneh''; Kurdish ''tarxane'', Albanian ''trahana'', Bulgarian ''трахана'' or ''тархана'', Serbo-Croatian ''tarana'' or ''trahana''; Hungarian tarhonya or Turkish ''tarhana''. The Armenian ''tarkhana'' is made up of

matzoon Matzoon ( hy, մածուն, ''matsun'') or matsoni ( ka, მაწონი, ''mats'oni'') is a fermented milk product of Armenian origin, distributed in Armenia and Georgia. The so-called ''Caspian Sea yogurt'' circulated and commercialized ...

and eggs mixed with equal amounts of wheat flour and starch. Small pieces of dough are prepared and dried and then kept in glass containers and used mostly in soups, dissolving in hot liquids. The Greek ''trahanas'' contains only cracked wheat or a '' couscous''-like paste and fermented milk. The Turkish ''tarhana'' consists of cracked wheat (or flour), yoghurt, and vegetables, fermented and then dried. In

Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is ...

, it is considered a national specialty, and is often served with pieces of

halloumi Halloumi or haloumi (, el, χαλούμι, haloúmi; tr, hellim}) is a traditional Cypriot cheese made from a mixture of goat's and sheep's milk, and sometimes also cow's milk. Its texture is described as squeaky. It has a high melting point ...

cheese in it. In

Albania Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and share ...

it is prepared with wheat, yoghurt and butter, and served with hot

olive oil Olive oil is a liquid fat obtained from olives (the fruit of ''Olea europaea''; family Oleaceae), a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin, produced by pressing whole olives and extracting the oil. It is commonly used in cooking: ...

and

feta Feta ( el, φέτα, ) is a Greek brined white cheese made from sheep's milk or from a mixture of sheep and goat's milk. It is soft, with small or no holes, a compact touch, few cuts, and no skin. Crumbly with a slightly grainy texture, it ...

cheese.

Etymology

Hill and Bryer suggest that the term ''tarhana'' is related to Greek τρακτόν (''trakton'',

romanized Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and ...

as ''tractum''), a thickener

Apicius ''Apicius'', also known as ''De re culinaria'' or ''De re coquinaria'' (''On the Subject of Cooking'') is a collection of Roman cookery recipes. It is thought to have been compiled in the fifth century AD. Its language is in many ways closer ...

wrote about in the 1st century CE which most other authors consider to be a sort of cracker crumb. Dalby (1996) connects it to the Greek τραγός/τραγανός (''tragos''/''traganos''), described (and condemned) in

Galen Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus ( el, Κλαύδιος Γαληνός; September 129 – c. AD 216), often Anglicized as Galen () or Galen of Pergamon, was a Greek physician, surgeon and philosopher in the Roman Empire. Considered to be o ...

's ''Geoponica'' 3.8. Weaver (2002) also considers it of Western origin. Perry, on the other hand, considers that the phonetic evolution of τραγανός to ''tarhana'' is unlikely, and that it probably comes from fa, ترخوانه ''tarkhwāneh''. He considers the resemblance to τραγανός and to τραχύς 'coarse' coincidental, though he speculates that τραχύς may have influenced the word by folk etymology. In Persian language sources, al-Zamakhshari mentioned the name of this food in the 11th century in the form ''tarkhana'' in his dictionary; it is attested in the 13th century in the form ''tarkhina'' in the ''Jahangiri Encyclopedia'' (named after Jahangir, the Mughal emperor of India). ''Tar'' تر in Persian means 'wet, soaked', and ''khwān'' خوان (pronounced ''khān'') means 'dining place/table, food, large wooden bowl'. Thus in Persian it would mean 'watered or soaked food', which matches the way the soup is made: tarhana must be soaked in water, and other possible ingredients are then added and cooked for some time.

Manufacture

Tarhana is made by mixing flour, yoghurt or sour milk, and optionally cooked vegetables, salt,

groats Groats (or in some cases, "berries") are the hulled kernels of various cereal grains, such as oat, wheat, rye, and barley. Groats are whole grains that include the cereal germ and fiber-rich bran portion of the grain, as well as the endosp ...

, and spices (notably tarhana herb), letting the mixture ferment, then drying, and usually grinding and sieving the result. The fermentation produces

lactic acid Lactic acid is an organic acid. It has a molecular formula . It is white in the solid state and it is miscible with water. When in the dissolved state, it forms a colorless solution. Production includes both artificial synthesis as well as nat ...

and other compounds giving tarhana its characteristic sour taste and good keeping properties: the pH is lowered to 3.4-4.2, and the drying step reduces the moisture content to 6-10%, resulting in a medium inhospitable to

pathogen In biology, a pathogen ( el, πάθος, "suffering", "passion" and , "producer of") in the oldest and broadest sense, is any organism or agent that can produce disease. A pathogen may also be referred to as an infectious agent, or simply a g ...

s and spoilage organisms, while preserving the milk

protein Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including catalysing metabolic reactions, DNA replication, res ...

Preparation

Tarhana is cooked as a thick soup by adding it to stock, water, or milk, and simmering. Alternatively, it may be fried and then cooked in only as much liquid as it will absorb. In

it is made with wheat flour and yoghurt into small pasta-like chunks which are dried and crushed; the powder is used to cook a soup which is served with bread cubes. In Cyprus it is common to add cubes of Halloumi cheese towards the end of cooking.

References

Bibliography

* Françoise Aubaile-Sallenave, "''Al-Kishk'': the past and present of a complex culinary practice", in Sami Zubaida and Richard Tapper, ''A Taste of Thyme: Culinary Cultures of the Middle East'', London and New York, 1994 and 2000, . * Elisabeth Luard, ''The Old World Kitchen'',

External links