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Final product of kotlet being made. (November 2nd, 2025). Photo by Lucas Yessayan.
The Jounrey of Grandmother's Kotlet Across Borders and
The Jounrey of Grandmother's Kotlet Across Borders and
by Lucas Yessayan
My mother swiftly hustling back and forth between the counters of our kitchen reminded me of the flight of the bumblebee. Except instead of buzzing, the sound of blending, mixing, and frying emanated from her workspace. This ritual has been passed down from generation to generation in my family: my grandmother made this same dish when we would visit her. Peering into the skillet Mama was using, my mouth began watering instantly. I could see the honey colored olive oil sizzling, giving the kotlet its characteristic golden-brown outer layer… the product of a lot of hard work. But this hard work comes with a story, one that begins with its very simple ingredients and unfolds into the deep nostalgia it brings me.
First, potatoes must be peeled, onions chopped, and blended together until it is soft enough to be added into a bowl with eggs and ground beef, seasoned with a wide variety of spices that would have astonished a spice trade-era merchant: salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, paprika, and curry powder. The contents of the bowl are mixed, which takes a great amount of physical effort, until they are shaped into the kotlet's signature oval shape. The ovals are then coated with bread crumbs to give it a crispy outer layer after it is fried in olive oil.
The kotlet ingredients mixed together in a bowl. (November 2nd, 2025). Photo by Lucas Yessayan.
The kotlet fried using olive oil. (November 2nd, 2025). Photo by Lucas Yessayan.
For so long, I had thought that this dish was exclusively part of the Persian-Armenian cuisine that I was brought up in from my mother’s side, only to discover its long-lost “cousins” in other cultures. Kotlet has its origins from France, where it was first termed, cuttlete, and from there spread to other cultures (Wilson). In Poland, it is also called kotlet, and has a chicken counterpart called the kiev; in Japan, called katsuretsu and later evolved into ton-katsu, a pork recipe; and all across European cuisines, especially in Eastern Europe, there exist several variations of cutlet (Kawada; Zibart). Kotlet only reached Persia upon the introduction of potatoes to the Royal Family by British ambassadors, and soon after, kotlet was created sometime in the 19th century (Wilson). In Persia, the dish had several variants: “Traditionally, the meat was either lamb or beef, with chicken and turkey becoming more common and more popular over time” (Wilson). Kotlet’s history and evolution over time shows just how far a dish can travel and be celebrated among many cultures. It represents how even across vast distances, all humanity shares the experience of comfort through food.
Like many Armenian families, my grandparents on my mother’s side lived in Iran until the 1970s. At the time, Iran had a large Armenian population with vibrant communities of their own. My grandmother learned of kotlet from living in Iran and maintaining their traditional Armenian heritage and cuisine and made her own recipe. Later, my grandparents moved with their family from Iran to Armenia, and after my mother was born, they eventually relocated to the United States, arriving in Los Angeles, California, in the 80s.
My family would always visit my grandmother’s house, and my earliest (yet most vivid) memories as a young child were sitting at a small table with a flowery tablecloth in her sunlit kitchen, drinking Armenian-Russian tea and eating kotlet after a long day of playing outside in the yard with my sister and cousins. She would say in Armenian, “ari, ari”— calling us inside to eat. It always smelled amazing in her house from the savory smell of home-cooked meals combined with the sweet aroma of saffron from boiling tea, as well as the outside smell of trees with ripe fruit lurking in from the small garden my grandfather took care of through the back door she would leave open, even at nights. Even years after they passed, I will always carry the memory of my grandparents.
Biting into the kotlet transformed me into my childhood self, sitting in my grandmother’s kitchen. It was as if I had stepped into a time-machine. I felt nostalgia and warmth rush into me at once, and I could almost taste the care and love put into creating it. As my teeth break the outer, crispy layer, my tongue feels its soft, meaty inner core that tastes like home. At the same time, I am also reminded that despite borders and differences in culture, humans share the same comforting flavors. The fact that this dish is shared among people thousands of miles apart and can find comfort in a similar food portrays the interconnectedness of humanity through food.
Works Cited
Kawada, Kie. “Japanese Cooking through Media.” Acta Asiatica Varsoviensia, no. 26, 2013, pp. 7–10. Institute of Mediterranean and Oriental Cultures, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw. http://aav.iksiopan.pl/images/AAV/AAV_26/aav_26_full.pdf. Accessed 7 Nov. 2025.
Yessayan, Lucas. Photo of ingredients of kotlet on a tray. 1 Oct. 2025. Author's personal collection.
Yessayan, Lucas. Photo of kotlet ingredients mixed together. 1 Oct. 2025. Author's personal collection.
Yessayan, Lucas. Photo of kotlets fried with olive oil. 1 Oct. 2025. Author's personal collection.
Yessayan, Lucas. Photo of final product of kotlet. 1 Oct. 2025. Author's personal collection.
Wilson, Matthew. “Kotlet: The Origin of The Iranian Meat Patty”. The Daily Meal, Static Media Inc., 14 Jan. 2024. https://www.thedailymeal.com/1490205/kotlet-persian-meat-potato-patty/. Accessed 7 Nov. 2025.
Zibart, Eve. "Comfort Zone." The Washington Post, 13 Dec. 2002, pp. WW.24. ProQuest, https://proxy.lib.umich.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/comfort-zone/docview/409430271/se-2. Accessed 7 Nov. 2025.
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