Georgian Supra – An Endless Feast (@ishaygovender) A version of this article appeared on Food & Home, October 2018
Bakery Ballet
Nana Chivadze, a baker with flushed cheeks and a toothless grin, tips over, head first into a hot toné – the Georgian circular terracotta oven similar to the Indian tandoor. Deftly, she slaps the elongated kayak-shaped breads called Deda’s puri, or ‘mother’s bread’ against the sides of the oven, working her way in a circle from bottom to top. She leans forward, arms and head disappearing inside the oven and her legs lift off the ground for a number of seconds. I breathe out with relief each time Nana emerges, smiling at us and motioning with her hands that we eat up – she’s placed a fresh bread in front of us and her husband, Nodari Rusishvili, also a baker, brings out a small bottle of homemade chacha, or vine vodka (similar to grappa), shot glasses, pungent sheep’s milk guda cheese and a side plate of sun-sweet red grapes from the vines behind the bakery.
It’s barely past 10 AM, but our journey through Georgia has taught us that refusing such offers would be unkind. “I discovered that the Georgians are some of the world’s most hospitable people,” Carla Capalbo, author of the widely praised Tasting Georgia -A Food and Wine Journey in the Caucasus , tells me via email. “For the Georgians, the guest is a gift from god so even in houses without running water or any of our mod cons, they lay on elaborate and generous feasts for those who come in peace.”
So, we knock back a shot followed by bite of the crusty bread and a palm-full of grapes. Life-long bakers, the couple moved back to Telavi, the main city of Georgia’s western and most famous wine region, Khakheti, and started this hole-in-the-wall bakery 25 years ago. When a customer arrives at the window, Nana appears briefly to receive payment and hand over a fresh loaf before disappearing back to the rhythm of mixing, kneading, shaping and stretching the long-handled loaves against the inside of the tone. Removing one with a long wooden tool, she stacks it on a rack and replaces an unbaked loaf in its place in the toné, briefly pausing to wipe her brow with a cloth. It’s like watching a bakery ballet, the toil is relentless, the movements precise and the grand finale, the puri, an essential character in the Georgian meal.
Perhaps the most photogenic of Georgian breads are those filled cheese, known as khachapuri, and particularly so, the curvy boat-shaped Adjarian khachapuri. Inside, a mixture of stringy sulguni and other cheeses melt and ooze, encasing a raw egg yolk and a hunk of butter which you whisk vigorously into the cheese when the khachapuri arrives at the table piping hot, creating golden ribbons that you dip torn-off pieces of bread into.
East Meets West
If the words – puri and toné – seem familiar, that’s because Georgia once sat at the centre of the ancient East-West trade routes on the Silk Road, where ideas, goods and traditions were exchanged between the Asian, Middle Eastern and Western worlds, and in the kitchen, these concepts melded over time. Take marigold petals, dried and crushed for cooking – the poor man’s “saffron”, the famous pleated khinkali (soup dumplings) similar to those from China, the use of fresh and dried, ground pomegranate arils, chilli used in ajika pastes and the sweet-tart stews made with tklapi (fruit leathers) of sour plum, for a start. The very best place to witness this amalgamation of food cultures and the bounty of Georgian produce is to visit a market. At the Deserters’ Bazari in capital city Tbilisi, journalist and guide Paul Rimple of Culinary Backstreets takes us to his favourite stalls. We examine bushels of pomegranates, mounds of dried spices like blue fenugreek and crushed marigold and sample fat ‘sausages’ of nuts stringed together and dipped in thickened fruit juice, called churchkhela(“Think of it as the precursor to the energy bar,” he says. ”It’s powered many soldiers through many wars.”), fermented and pickled vegetables, an array of hand-made cheeses sold by the producers in small batches and my favourite – homemade cold pressed sunflower oil, dispensed into plastic water bottles. Georgian sunflower oil is the elegant robe your salads have been pining for. The fresh nuttiness can’t be compared to much else.
In a Wine Country
Georgia’s history is complex and lasting effects from its forcible incorporation into the Soviet Republic (followed by independence in 1991, save for two sizable regions controlled by Russia), manifest today. Most notably, on its 8000-year natural wine making history (it’s the oldest known wine-producing nation in the world), which was replaced to a large extent by barrels and commercial wineries producing high-volume, low quality wines during Soviet rule. Traditional winemaking uses a qvevri, a giant earthenware egg-shaped amphora that is buried in the ground where wine is aged and stored. Qvevris are crafted by master potters, a trade passed down through the generations. In spite of the losses suffered during its Soviet incorporation, natural wine-making is thriving in today, and Khakheti has some fine examples including the millennium-old Alaverdi Monastery, and Pheasant’s Tear and Okro’s Wines – both in Sighnaghi. Orange wines, a natural amber-hued white wine resulting from grape skin contact, are Georgia’s famous export and I make sure I try it wherever available.
Supra – the Story of a Georgian Table
For artist John Wurdeman, owner of Pheasant’s Tears winery and a number of restaurants, Georgian food, drink and music are inextricably intertwined, revealing a layered, multi-ethnic history. Even modest homes delight in hostingsupras(feasts), with atamada(toast-maker) making several lengthy and often philosophical speeches and polyphonic musicians performing traditional songs and dances. In this way, story-telling through song and dance around a table with food and wine prepared in a time-honoured manner, forms part of the Georgian identity. John’s wife,Ketevan Mindorashvili, a chef and polyphonic musician treat us to a performance, along with her troupe Zedashe Ensemble, that tells stories of love, lament and joy when we visit Pheasant’s Tears restaurant for dinner.
While Carla mentions in her book that Georgians tend not to stray far from traditional recipes, many skilled cooks, like Gia Rokashviliwho heads the Pheasant’s Tears kitchen, add twists and tweaks inspired by travels and contact with other cultures. I suppose, much like it was during the Silk Road trade period. “We make many chicken dishes,” Gia says. “Tabaka is pan-fried with garlic. We make chicken with sour milk and even more garlic, or walnut sauce, raspberry sauce, blueberry sauce, even a green sauce. My favourite is chakhokhbilli – to me it’s like an Indian curry, so interesting. I use butter, onions, herbs – it depends what I have. Sometimes I make it with tomato, sometimes, a little creamy. It’s comfort food and I play around a bit.”
Our supra that evening prepared by Gia includes rolled roasted aubergine slices smothered in walnut paste, a heaving cheese board with fresh walnuts and local honey, chicken pieces sautéed with ginger and ghee, wedges of potato tortilla, with fermented jonjoli (bladderwort flowers), whole fermented garlic cloves and pots of bean stew slow-cooked with herbs. For a long-time vegetarian like John, Georgia is a place where one can eat handsomely and never feel short-changed, I come to realise.
We toast with a succession of hearty shouts of “guamarjos” (cheers) through the night, enjoying an array of natural wines, the names a challenge for an English-speaker to pronounce: Mtsvani, Rkatsiteli, Saperavi, Shavikapito. The night ends with a variety of chacha made with honey, a crocus flower and violets hand-harvested by Ketevan. I leave Georgia with crib notes on how to throw my next dinner party and weeks later, at home, while leafing through Carla’s magnificent tome, I get to relive the memories of some of the food, wines and people I met along the way.
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OPTIONAL
NEED TO KNOW
South Africans do not need a tourist visa to visit Georgia.
Hire a car before you arrive from a reputable dealer like Avis.
- Book food tours in Tbilisi with Culinary Backstreets:http://culinarybackstreets.com/
- Book food and history tours around Georgia with Living Roots:com
EAT & DRINK
Pheasant’s Tears
18 Baratashvili Street, Sighnaghi
Okro’s Wines & Restaurant
Chavchavadze st., 7a, Signagi
+995 599 54 20 14
Culinarium Khasheria
Deserter’s Bazaar
Corner of Abastumani and Tsinamdzgvrishvili
Vino Underground
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