Parts Unknown Fan Recap: Armenia

On Sunday, May 20, 2018, CNN aired Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown highly anticipated episode dedicated to Armenia. Bourdain traveled to Armenia with System of a Down’s Serj Tankian. They talked about Armenia's painful history, the strength of the Diaspora, and those who are shaping its future. Roads & Kingdoms co-founder Nathan Thornburgh and stand-up comedian Jennifer Neal rehash the episode.

Rewriting the Story of the Starving Armenian

Liana Aghajanian

 

At the turn of the 20th century, long before “Kardashian” entered the vernacular, Americans knew one thing about Armenians: They were very hungry.

Mothers in kitchens across America warned their children to clean their plates and remember “the starving Armenians”—and soon the phrase began to make appearances in newspapers and magazines.

As refrigerators came into popular use in the 1920s and ’30s, General Electric ran an inelegant ad touting the storage benefits and time-saving benefits of the appliance. “Work your menus up a week in advance, then proceed to make the items that will keep and store them in your electric refrigerator until it is time for them to appear in the limelight, for confiscation by your ‘hungry Armenians.’”

The term also appeared in an 1934 op-ed in a Pennsylvania paper about the changing diets of children. “At four o’clock, we tore home like starving Armenians,” the writer laments of her own childhood in comparison to the children of the 1930s. “Into the kitchen pantry we raced.”