The Wrap at the Counter

Research feeds the book; the body has its own bibliography. Somewhere between Alaverdi and the road south I stopped at a counter with high stools and no menu I could read fast enough, so I pointed at what the man ahead of me got. What arrived was a lavash wrap the size of a forearm: meat off the mangal, a fistful of herbs, onions that had not been asked to compromise.

I ate it standing, elbow on the counter, the way the locals did, because eating a thing correctly is part of tasting it. The lavash was the revelation. Thin as paper, strong as luggage. Whole civilizations have been carried in bread like this and I mean that as engineering praise.

I photographed the second half before it followed the first, one hand for the wrap, one for the camera, priorities visible in the framing. No dish name, no address. Some counters should be found the way I found them, hungry and by accident.