A PEOPLE REMEMBERED

One of my favorite meals, and the one my mother always made me when I returned home for college breaks, was his lamb shanks.  My two brothers and I would walk a mile for a good piece of lamb and my last thanksgiving at home with all the family included this lamb dish, along with the turkey.

But back to this great cook.

George’s father, Magar, was of one of the approximately 250 ethnic-Armenian intellectuals and community leaders arrested on April 24, 1915, known as Red Sunday. After his arrest, the Amirians were driven out of their homes and marched to Erzincan. George's maternal grandmother, Vartanoush Amirian, committed suicide by jumping in the Euphrates, while the rest of the Amirian family was either beaten to death or burned alive. Witnessing the massacre of his mother's side of his family, George wanted to avenge their deaths. He ran away from home and joined the Armenian volunteer units, in which his uncle, Krikor Amirian, was a high-ranking member. After the First World War ended, George returned as a war hero.

Due to on-going political chaos, George’s mother told him to flee to the Americaand join a sister already there.  He arrived at Ellis Island on July 24, 1922. When he was able to take a shower, he stated, "I washed away the grime, I washed away the years. I washed away the Old World, I washed away all the hatred and injustice and cruelty I had known, all the hunger, all the weeping, all the pain”.

He later stated, "As I dried myself with the thick, heavy towel, and saw my clean skin and felt my blood tingle, it was as though I had been reborn, as though I were a completely new human being, a taller, a stronger, prouder man- an American”. From  that day, he proclaimed July 24 as his birthday.

He took the train to San Francisco and found a job working as a dishwasher at Coffee Dan's and later at Clinton's Cafeteria. He was later appointed restaurant manager by Eugene Compton.

In 1930, he moved to Fresno where he joined the vibrant Armenian immigrant community. He opened a lunch counter called "Omar Khayyam's", named after the famous Persian poet. He both cooked and waited on tables. His wife Nazenig (which means dainty in Armenian) was the greeter and cashier. 

Despite the ongoing Great Depression, customers filled his diner to enjoy his clam chowder, chili con carne, and pot roast. As he frequently noted, his dream was to teach Americans how to eat well.

He would later move his restaurant to two other large buildings in Fresnoand then, in 1938, to the old Coffee Dan's building in San Francisco, where he earned praise from critics and locals alike.

In 1942, George was appointed as a food consultant to the Quartermaster General of the United States Army, a position that he would hold until 1954. He  would receive presidential commendations for the drastic changes that he made to the United States military. In 1944, he published a cook book, Dinner at Omar Khayyam's, that was reprinted numerous times over the next two decades.

In 1945, he donated his services as caterer for the United Nations Conference on International Organization that was held in San Franciscoand established the United Nations. 

George made great efforts to bring his family to the US as well as other Armenians. Over 5,000 Armenians immigrated to the United States because of his efforts. 

In 1951, George was awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Harry S. Truman for his work as a consultant to the Quartermaster General of the United States Army- his salary was $1.00 a year. A portion of the citation reads, "With vigorous energy, keen powers of observation and analysis and a dynamic personality, he enlisted the enthusiastic interest of commanders and soldiers alike in the preparation and service of food under varying conditions in the combat zone."

Omar Khayyam's' was located at 200 Powell Street in San Francisco in the basement of a building on the northeast corner of Powell Street and O'Farrell Street. Diners would descend into the cavernous, sumptuously decorated restaurant below.

Tables in the restaurant were contained in curtained chambers out of the Arabian Nights decorated with wall-hangings and inscriptions from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

The menu was exotic (for the time), featuring a mix of Armenian, Middle Eastern, and African cooking adapted for American palates, yet foods that I was familiar with, even as a small child.  I was probably seven when my Aunt Jean (who often took me on business trips - having no children of her own).  I remember the scene well.  I wanted dolma and there were no dolma on the menu.  My Aunt told the waiter my request  and his reply, any child this age who knows dolma, will have  dolma. And so I did!