PROVIDENCE, RI — “This photo is of my great-grandparents, Mgrdeech and Khosrofouhi Mardirosian with my grandmother, Goldie, in Everett, Massachusetts in the 1920s,” says Janice Dzovinar Okoomian, Ph.D., Associate Professor of English and Gender & Women’s Studies at Rhode Island College in Providence, Rhode Island, as she is pointing to a picture.
“My grandmother, Voski Takouhi Victoria Nakashian (neé Mardirosian), was named after Queen Victoria of England, whom her beloved mother, Khosrofouhi Arzoumanian admired. ‘Golden Queen Victoria’ is the translation of her name; she was known as Goldie, says Janice.
“I learned to cook at my grandmother’s (Goldie’s) elbow. We collected many rose petals from her garden and made rose syrup; she taught me to make ‘shekher lokhom’ (kourabia), paklava, and many other Armenian delights. My grandfather Ludwig was creative and inventive; he often made the family’s madzoon on the steam radiator in their kitchen, and we always put his madzoon on our pilav. When I cooked with my grandmother, she would measure her ingredients by eye and feel,” adds Janice.
Goldie was born in 1907 in Everett,, where she lived for her entire life. “Her mother, Khosrofouhi, was the niece of Bishop Drtad Balian, the Bishop of Gesarya. Her father Mgrdeech was from Kharpert. He was a cooper (a barrel maker) and performed with a touring wrestling team in the United States. Khosrofouhi believed in education for women, so she sent my grandmother Goldie to college, where she completed one year of study. Goldie later married Ludwig Nakashian in 1926, and they had two children, Phyllis (Janice’s mother), and Martin,” says Janice.
“Goldie was also an amateur oil painter and poet. I have many of her seascapes hanging in my house, and some of her poetry was published in magazines. She also developed a hobby of entering contests, and she got very good at winning them. On the way home from the hospital after the birth of her son, in 1931, she stopped by an airfield and won the prize for the youngest baby. The prize was a ride in an airplane. My childhood home was full of transistor radios, kitchen appliances, skateboards, and other objects that my grandmother had won in contests. Often, Goldie would have to write a jingle or poem for the contest. She also adapted her Armenian recipes for an American context. In the 1960s, when Jell-O ran a contest for recipes using Jell-O, Goldie was one of the winners, with a recipe she called ‘Mediterranean Jell-O Delight,’ which was basically a Jell-O mold version of jajek – madzoon, cucumbers, and mint.”
The Armenian Museum of America in Watertown features Goldie’s Koulenje recipe from Gesaria (Kayseri) on its website. Koulenje is an Armenian quickbread which originated in the region of Gesaria in Armenia. Janice contributed the recipe to the museum in honor of her grandmother.
