No Passport Required

(upbeat trumpets) So I'm up at dawn. Driving on this dusty road into the hills of Altadena. For a minute I don't realize that I'm just outside Los Angeles. I finally arrive at this magical ranch built by an Armenian in the 1940's. And I'm here for one of the oldest and most traditional meals in Armenian culture. The khash feast. Hey, man. Hey, how's it goin'? What's up, how are you? How you doing? Good. Ara's this typical L.A. kid. Like he's a surfer. He's a skateboarder. He's got an Armenian-American cookbook coming out. He does Armenian cooking classes in Armenia. So he really has his feet in both countries, right? So, right there we got the khash. The khash. Khash. - The khash. You gotta get the (gurgling noise), okay? Yes. It's cow foot soup. Yes. Back in the day when they didn't have a lot. You had to use every part of the animal. Yeah. You take this cows foot. You'd singe the hair, pluck it, and then you boil it for about four to five hours. One of the best times I've ever had this I was on the top of Aragats. Which is one of the highest peaks in Armenia. Yeah. And they serve your khash and it's this empowering feeling where you're eating this cow foot soup on the tallest mountain. You know one of the highest points. It was an insane moment for me. Many of the younger generation Armenians who grew up in LA they actually never been to Armenia itself. So they really grew up with this idea that was told to them by their grandparents or their parents. For more than ever they started to go back to Armenia. Back to their roots. I grew up in an Egyptian Armenian household. My Dad was Armenian from Jerusalem. Yeah. And I was like, "Yeah this is Armenian". And then I came to realize that most of the stuff actually wasn't Armenian. Yeah (laughs). And I didn't find that out until I went to Armenia for the first time. You're an LA kid right? Yeah born and raised. Yeah and then you're like, you're flying in to Armenia was a little bit of a culture shock for you. You know what it's kind of crazy. I was told the first time you go to Armenia you get this feeling, this sense of being home. Yeah. And I was like, "There's no way". But honestly the first time I step foot, I got that feeling. Going through Armenia started getting me to question what actually was Armenian cuisine. What Armenians in Armenia were eating constantly. And what we found was nothing short of amazing. You're diving into like old school Armenia. You're almost on this like journey on finding out what is the OG sort of Armenian cuisine. That takes time. That's like almost historical work. Exactly.