Georgian food or do not touch khinkali with fork and knife.

And finally came the moment to talk about such important aspect of our trip as Georgian food.
Of course, we had heard a lot about Georgian cuisine and even tasted it in Tallinn and during our trip to Saint -Petersburg, so our expectations were high.
First we tasted Georgian food in Georgia proper coming back from David-Gareji and Sighnaghi on the very first day. Then when we traveled with Vadim sumptuous meal was an integral part of our journey - be it on roadside next to Mtskheta after we visited Shio-Mgvime monastery, fresh trout from the farm after the visit to Vardzia or hilltop restaurant overlooking Ilia lake after the visit to Kvareli wine factory.
There was big difference though: touring with Vadim not only do you get to see monuments, but you are also exposed to the tradition of supra - Georgian plentiful feast.

Supra is characterized by a wide assortment of dishes, large amounts of wine, long duration (supra can last for hours) and the special toastmaster - tamada guiding the feast. Tamada's responsibility is to introduce each toast and the rest develop the idea with each of the guests trying to be more eloquent, sharp-minded, original. Therefore a good tamada must feel the table and be himself very eloquent, intelligent, sharp and quick-thinking. The toasts follow each other in a certain order, starting form "Let us drink to God giving us this world" and drinking separately to parents, children, siblings, grandparents, more distant relatives who created this country and built beautiful monuments, to the homeland, to peace... It is considered low class for tamada to start proposing toasts to each guest at the table - meaning tamada is out of inspiration. However, on some occasions one of the guests is honored by being toasted for. In this case he must say a sort of 'return toast' before he is allowed to drink his wine.
Toasting to someone at the table for Georgians is a way to express something that people do not always feel at ease to talk about: thank a friend for his help and support, mention someone's generosity, honesty... This also has another powerful effect: being complimented on his own, let's say, generosity or honesty in front of all the friends, the person will feel he needs to keep up with the praise and show his best qualities.
In case of the guests' visit, the head of the house will usually assume the role of tamada. As we were guests in Vadim's big home - Georgia - he was our unchallenged tamada.

Dinner at Ilia lake next to Kvareli with Vadim presiding the table.

Unlike in most countries where each one orders his own appetizers, salads and main dishes, at Georgian table all dishes are brought on sort of 'community plates' and placed in the middle of the table. Each participant will then take food from the community plates and pass it over to his personal plate. I guess, in Georgia you cannot find people allergic to certain products, vegetarians, those following gluten-free diet and so on. Everybody eats everything brought to the table. And since Georgians are known to live hundred years being in excellent shape (and drinking a couple of glasses of wine every day), their diet seems to be working.

So let us look at the supra table.

First, the bread is brought. Traditional Georgian breads are baked in a large well-shaped oven called T'one so the bread itself is called Tonis Puri.

Tonis Puri on sale at Telavi market

And this is how it is served (well, bread baskets are common in other cultures as well).

Then come appetizers. Again, they are not served individually but placed in the middle for everyone to sample. One popular appetizer is nigvziani badrijani (ნიგვზიანი ბადრიჯანი) made with fried eggplant covered with spiced walnut paste.

Another variation on what can be done with eggplants - badrijani with garlic: they are fried and served with pound garlic paste.

Every Georgian meal is also accompanied by cheese. As you could remember from our trip to Telavi market it is a white, slight sour and a little salty cheese - elastic and dimpled. Suluguni is produced only of natural ingredients and is a "quick cheese" maturing in just one or two days: Georgians do not seem to favor hard matured yellow cheeses. 

A folk etymology posits that the name sulguni comes from two Georgian words - suli (which means "soul") and guli (which means "heart").

Suluguni - Georgian heart and soul on sale at Telavi market.

Another kind of cheese is not even shaped into flat disks: it is loose and mixed with fresh mint - very unusual and goes very well with white wine.

Basturma - air-dried cured beef - is another popular appetizer. This dish exists in many countries of Caucasus, as well as in Turkey and on Balkan peninsula. It is usually served as a mezze in thin slices. Georgian variety is very tender, does not have slices of fat and is seasoned with paprika.

Unlike in some other countries with hot climate, Georgian cuisine is not hot so no worries, your mouth will not burn. They do use and sell a lot of herbs, but it is definitely not a priority to disguise the taste under burning hot spices.

Red paprika on sale at Telavi market.

From our visit to Kvareli wine factory we learned why Georgian wine is so special and different from any other wine-making country in the world. We were also explained the traditions of Georgian wine-drinking. We were surprised to find out that most Georgians drink white wine at supras. They explain that white wine does not make you drunk too quickly and allows you to spend more time at the table. While red is treated as a sort of medicine as it is richer in antioxidants and is drunk at lunch - just a couple glasses. Even monks at Vardzia or Gelati had to drink several glasses a day: they crashed bread into bowls and ate it as a sourse of vitamins. The monks spend a lot of time fasting and need to replenish vitamins and elements that they cannot get from their modest food. Georgians are certain that drinking a couple of glasses of red wine a day serves as preventive measures against heart diseases, headaches, promotes vein elasticity - in short, it is an elixir of not of youth, but of healthy and long mature age.

Georgians in the countryside mostly do not bother with the bottles - how many of them needed for one decent supra?! - and prefer buying their amber-colored whites in such big plastic plastic bottles, The wine is served from the pitchers.

Vadim and wine - before being poured into the pitcher

Another unusual detail is that they do not seem to favor salads - in the sense of group of products with a certain dressing. Georgian salad contains no dressing but fresh tomatoes and cucumbers, chopped, sprinkled with a tiny bit of salt, shredded onion, basil and coriander.

As to mayonnaise-based salads - we did not meet them at all.

An indispensable part of Georgian table - not only at dinner but even at breakfast is khachapuri (ხაჭაპური or "cheese bread") - a filled bread dish. The bread is leavened and allowed to rise, and is shaped in various ways. The filling contains cheese (fresh or aged, most commonly suluguni), eggs and other ingredients. Of course, each region of Georgia has its own variety of khachapuri with Imeretian (also called Imeruli - pictured below) being circular and probably the most common type. While Mingrelian variety (Megruli) is very similar but has more cheese on top. Abkhazian version - achma - has multiple layers and can be compared to a lasagna with cheese but without sauce or a salty mile-feuille.  Adjarian khachapuri (also called adjaruli) is, probably, the most unusual variation: the dough is formed into an open boat shape and the hot pie is topped with a raw egg and a pat of butter before serving
As a Georgian staple food, the price of making a Khachapuri is used as a measure of inflation in different Georgian cities by the Khachapuri index.

Imeruli

After khachapuri comes heavy artillery - meat dishes with shashlik (also called mtsvadi) being one of definite favorites. Sometimes meat for shashlik is not marinated, but mostly it stays overnight in a high-acidity marinade like vinegar, dry wine or sour fruit/vegetable juice with the addition of herbs and spices. Again it is served on community plate sprinkled with shredded purple onion.

Shashlik is usually cooked on a grill called a mangal. During social gatherings shashlyk cooked outdoors is one of the most popular modes of consumption.

Shashlik expert at work behind his mangal

The last hit on stomach comes with khinkali (ხინკალი). By the time they arrived we were too full and lazy to reach for the camera so we have no photos (next time!) but we will still try to describe it and teach you how it is eaten. Khinkali is essentially a big dumpling (or Georgian dim-sum) filled mostly with spiced meat (usually beef and pork, sometimes mutton), greens, and onions.
It is eaten plain, or with coarse black pepper. The meat filling is uncooked when the Khinkali is assembled, so when cooked the juices of the meat are trapped inside the dumpling and this juicy broth is considered its best part.

Dare not taking a khinkali from the community plate using a fork! The entire table or even the entire restaurant will exclaim in disapproval of your vandalism. It is is to be taken from the plate using your hand only. It can be eaten with hands as well but if you want to show you manners you can use the fork to pierce the top where the pleats meet: it is tough and not supposed to be eaten anyway. The tops (Georgians tenderly call them "kuchi" (კუჭი) 'belly button') then stay on the plate and indicate how many pieces were consumed.

After you pierce the 'belly-button' with your fork take the first bite and suck out the juice. Work you way through the khinkali sucking the broth with every bite, do not lose a drop of it!

It takes practice but under proper guidance from locals you will soon be able to eat like a pro.

One aspect of a Georgian table that we never encountered is dessert. Good we did not for after every meal we were full & happy anyway. The only treat for a sweet tooth we tried was churchkhela (ჩურჩხელა) - traditional sausage-shaped candies.

The main ingredients are grape must, nuts and flour. Almonds, walnuts, hazel nuts and sometimes raisins are threaded onto a string, dipped in thickened grape juice and dried in the shape of a sausage.

Churchkhela on sale at Telavi market

Grape must is placed in a large bronze cauldron (called chartzin or kazani) and heated slowly.Then white earth and white floor are added. When the mix gets the right amount of bubbles it is considered to reach the desired consistency and removed from the heat. Next the strings of nuts are made, dipped in the mixture until completely covered and left to dry. The process is repeated several times (usually three times) until churchkhela reaches the desired thickness. 

After 5-6 days of drying they are ready to eat. They say, it can be kept without any preservatives till New Year, but it is hard to be verified in practice: kids in every family make sure the churchkhelas are eaten before the winter comes.

Georgian table is abundant and plentiful, but - surprisingly enough - when you leave the table you feel nicely full, not disgustingly full. Having communal plates allows you to taste a bit of every dish without eating the entire portion. So you have a bit of bread, cheese, veggies, meat (and quite a bit of wine) and can still breath, talk and move.

We were worried our stomachs would react to unusual cuisine and brought a bunch of medicine, but we did not need any. Georgian cooks have perfected these dishes for centuries so now they are absolutely 'foreigner safe'. And (even though they look like nothing like the foods marked '100% natural' or '100% organic' in your supermarkets), they are natural, organic and healthy. Georgians are known to live over hundred years old and their cuisine and wine could be a clue to their secret.

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