JOCELYN WISE CATERS TO HER ARMENIAN ROOTS
Boston Globe, MA
July 17 2013
By Lisa Zwirn / Globe Correspondent / July 16, 2013
Jocelyn Wise remembers when her grandmother’s native Armenian foods
were considered strange and unfamiliar. “There was also a different
language associated with them,” says Wise, chef and owner of Miss
Fork caterer in Stoneham.
One of her grandmother’s stews was a green bean and lamb dish called
fassoulya, slow-cooked with cheap, bony cuts, and plenty of garlic,
mint, and lemon. “Armenian food was peasant food,” says Wise, 50,
who grew up in Andover. Stews are thick enough to sop up with bread,
but thin with meat, which was an expensive ingredient.
Wise’s maternal grandparents emigrated from Armenia in the early
1900s. They met in the United States, married, and settled in Belmont.
Her grandfather, Badrig Zulalian, went to Tufts University and became
an architect. Wise’s mother, Sybil, loved to entertain and was an
adventurous cook, but it was Wise’s grandmother Elmon Zulalian who
cooked the traditional dishes the caterer became so fond of.
Those specialties include stuffed and rolled vegetables, lamb, bulgur,
and “lots of olive oil, lemon, fresh mint, and oregano,” says Wise.
Bulgur, which is wheat kernels that are steamed, dried, and ground
into different size grains, is a popular ingredient, considered
both nutritious and filling. Wise makes a dish called metch (tomato
tabbouli), in which the bulgur is steeped in tomato sauce and turns
richly flavored and very moist with a red tint. This particular recipe
comes from her good friend’s mother, Ann Melikian.
Paper-thin phyllo dough is used to wrap or layer both sweet and savory
ingredients. “I work with phyllo dough all the time,” she says. In
one pastry, called paklava, layers of phyllo and ground nuts are
soaked in a lemony simple syrup.
One of Wise’s favorite foods is lamb. Before grilling butterflied
leg of lamb, she marinates it in red wine vinegar, allspice, mint,
oregano, garlic, and olive oil. “There’s always garlic – and mint,”
she says. Allspice is also frequently used. She remembers her
grandmother rubbing cubes of lamb with allspice, paprika, garlic,
salt, and pepper. Then the men would thread the meat onto long skewers
and cook them over an open flame. “It’s the only thing I remember my
grandfather and his pals cooking,” says Wise.
Wise trained at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and also cooked in Italy. When
she started her catering company in 1998, she says, “I didn’t want
one of those pretentious French names. I wanted something playful.”
Tempted by a Man Ray piece called Mr. Knife and Miss Fork, she took
the name Miss Fork.
Today, her cooking mostly comprises Armenian, Mediterranean, and
Middle Eastern dishes. “I can do high-end [French] foods, but I lean
more to rustic, family-style cooking,” she says.
Like grandmother, like granddaughter.
MISS FORK 1 Church St., Stoneham, 617-838-4274,
http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/food-dining/2013/07/16/her-grandmother-armenian-peasant-food-graces-her-table-today/UhyIUXb5SNqLyj7JL3wphK/story.html
www.missforkcatering.com