Georgia has long had a reputation for elaborate feasts and warm hospitality. It is also known as a country where the wine flows freely and your glass is rarely empty. For me, a country’s history, culture and customs can be seen as much in their food as it can in their buildings, towns and museums. Georgia was a perfect case in point – the people take pride in their dishes, are generous with their food knowledge, and passionate about the process – whether that’s baking a loaf of bread, or making a qvevri of wine.
Our first night in Georgia was an introduction to the Georgian way of feasting. In the lovely port town of Batumi, not far from the Turkish border, we found ourselves in a ship-style restaurant. Upon arrival, the table was heaving with salads, cheeses, breads, whole fish and grilled eggplant.
As complete novices to Georgian feasts, we proceeded to sample everything, our eyes bigger than our stomachs. Then after ordering carafes of white and red wine, another dish suddenly appeared, then another. Both were meat dishes – one a type of meatball, the other was chicken in lemony garlic sauce accompanied by French fries. Then button mushrooms with garlic and finally, plates of fried cubes of pork.
The challenge with this type of feast is that you don’t know what’s around the corner and it’s difficult to pace yourself. Needless to say, some peaked too soon, while others rolled away from the table as though they had just finished Christmas lunch. However, there were no comfortable couches to slouch off to – in fact, towards the end of the feast is when the music kicked in and the dancing began.
A table of what had previously been quiet and tame young Georgian men suddenly burst into life, dancing around in a frenzy of high kicks, flying arms, smiles and shouts. Our men folk of course tried to compete, but some were sedated by the food, others invigorated (but not coordinated) by the wine. Although this style of energetic dancing might seem like a good way of burning the calories just consumed, jumping up and down on a full stomach isn’t for the faint-hearted.
A slightly more humble meal, but still incredibly tasty, was a lunch we had in the mountain town of Ushguli. When we discovered that the local cafe had no food for lunch, we were pointed in the direction of a guesthouse. After some discussion and a wait of more than an hour, the Grandmother of the house, along with her teenage Granddaughter, prepared and served for us an authentic, wholesome and delicious lunch.
This is where I had the best cheesy bread in Georgia – warm, fresh bread filled with salty rich cheese – the perfect companion for the sweet preserved figs served in small ceramic bowls. A simple but satisfying vegetable soup with carrots, onions and cabbage was a highlight, as were the hand-cut chips fried in front of us on an electric hotplate on the ground.
Not only was this one of the most tastiest meals, but it was served with a good dose of Georgian hospitality we had heard so much about. After talking with the young girl in English, which she was studying, and gesturing our gratitude to our wonderful hostess, we left feeling happy from our home-cooked meal. We also had a greater understanding of how key ingredients are valued and stretched such a long way in remote and rural areas, including the flavouring of salt with spices, which enhances everything from soup, to potato to bread.
From all our sampling of Georgian food, it was only right that we learnt more about Georgian cuisine, especially as several of us were keen to replicate the flavours and dishes we had been experiencing. In the lovely, quaint little winery, Nikolaishvili, we booked ourselves in for a cooking class and wine-tasting. Our hostess ‘Shorena’ showed us how to make Badrijani Nigvzit (eggplants with walnuts and garlic), and the famous Georgian dumplings. See recipes below.
We also watched her Mother-in-law bake bread in one of the large ceramic pots (previously used for making wine), which acted as a type of kiln once a fire had been lit, burned, died down, leaving the inside heated. Here the simple dough was rolled into longs, which were elongated further when patted inside the wall of the kiln. Placing your head and torso into the kiln to affix the bread to the wall is no easy feat. The heat is intense and the elasticy bread needs some firm patting to stick to the sides, so as to not flop onto the embered floor. This method is what gives the bread its distinctive bendy banana shape. It is also delicious and we ate it almost straight away when peeled off from the inside of the kiln.
While we waited for our dumplings to cook, the 12 or so of us sat around a large, long table on small stools and sampled the eggplant appetisers we had prepared and the freshly baked bread. We also tasted the white and red wine from their winery, and their potent ‘Chacha’, a type of grappa made from the fermented grapes extracted during the wine-making process. The wine and the festive atmosphere perhaps heightened our appreciation of the dishes Shorena had helped us prepare, but even by itself, the food was both different and delicious and every mouthful was savoured.
Our cooking-wining-dining experience was completed with a demonstration of how the ‘Georgian Snickers’ are made. A string of walnuts hung from a coat-rack were dunked in a thick mix of flour and grape juice that had been boiled together. This gooey, sweet coating firms up as it dries and made for a sweet after-meal treat later that evening.
Our cooking class and wine-tasting was not far from the town of Telavi, situated in the heart of the wine-making region Kakheti. This is where vineyards and cellars produce wine for local and international markets. One of Georgia’s claims to fame is the ‘birthplace’ of wine. In Kakheti, wine is produced using two quite different methods. One is the traditional way, where the wine ferments in large ceramic pots called ‘Qvevri’ (or Kvevri) placed in the ground, the other is using the ‘European’ method of fermentation in casks. The latter has been introduced to cater for the international market, along with sweetening the wine to also adapt to the European palette. We found some of the white wines less to our liking, as there was a vast difference between a Georgian white wine and what we would drink at home in the UK or New Zealand. However we found a lot of the reds were quite drinkable.
One of our favorite red wines was from a small cellar where we had taken our own lunch of hummus, vegetable crudités olives and bread. The cellar master opened the large lids in the ground and drew out wine which was poured into glasses for us to taste. The red was sweet, slightly like sherry, but not dry, and sipped alongside the salty cheese and fresh bread, was refreshing and delicious. We had a similar red at the Nikolaishvili Winery which was smooth, sweet and a good match for a range of foods. The only trick is to make sure you don’t let the wine sit for too long. As it’s decanted into plastic bottles, which you take with you from the winery, the exposure to air means that the aroma can become quite sharp and bitter, and if left too long, so can the taste. This however wasn’t an issue for us, as it was quickly consumed around the campfire within the week.
Throughout Georgia there were some common themes across the cooking – for example, their favouritism of dill and coriander, their reliance on bread and their love affair with cheese. In Tbilisi we saw Khinkali (dumplings) feature on many menus, both meat; pork, lamb, beef, and vegetable; mushroom, potato, and mixed vegetable. Although quite bland to look at, these are filling, generally cheap, and sold individually, allowing you to try several different kinds in one sitting.
Whether it was a quick slice of cheesy pie/bread (Khachapuri), a sip of ferocious Chacha or a full-on multi-dish feast, our Georgian food and wine experiences have left us with fond memories of the country – made even greater by the dancers, cooks and wine-makers who entertained and hosted us.
Information
- Tbilisi in your pocket
- Lonely Planet – Georgia, Armenia & Azerbaijan
Dumplings
Dough: Cold water, 1 kg of flour, 1 tsp salt
Filling: Minced pork or lamb, ‘greens’ (herbs: corriander, parsley etc), crushed garlic, diced onion, pepper, salt.
Method: Combine enough cold water with the flour and salt to make an elasticy dough. Roll out dough to about 1.5 cm thickness then cut rounds with a water glass. Roll these quite thin. Put aside.
Combine meat mince, chopped herbs, garlic, onion and seasonings in a bowl. Spoon heaped teaspoons of the mixture into the center of the rounds, and hold one side with lefthand, then using righthand, pinch together bit by bit to seal in the mixture, ensuring not too much dough is bunched at the top.
Place into boiling water. The dumplings will sink to the bottom initially, but will rise to the top once cooked and ready. Drain and serve.
Badrijani with walnuts
Ingredients: Walnuts, coriander powder, turmeric powder, salt, pepper, hot water, crushed garlic, eggplant, oil.
Method: Slice eggplant lengthways. Fry/grill in oil and set aside. In a bowl, add spices and seasonings to walnuts. Add a little hot/boiling water to make a paste. Stir in crushed garlic. Spread paste over one half of the eggplant slice and then fold over in half. Top with more paste.
Variation: Instead of using walnuts, simply combine chopped parsley with crushed garlic and season [and perhaps a little oil], then repeat as above with the mixture.
Thanks to Shorena from the Nikolaishvili Winery for sharing these recipes with us.
By Kelly Ley-Dahm
