Cuisine Notes of the Trip:

Wine

Georgia is the birthplace of wine, so we saw a lot of locations that would talk about the wine and why it's so different there. The wine is fermented in large clay pots burried underground, this kept the pots temperature well regulated by not being exposed to any heat or moisture in the air. In a wine factory we went to, the pots were kept burried undergrounds inside to keep it out of the sun as well. While the normal wine making process for the rest of the world has a lot of leftover waste in the form of the grape skin and other excess, that waste is used to make another alcohol known as chacha, which is a grape-like vodka.

Shoti Bread

We were able to take a class on Shoti bread, a Georgian Flatbread. Shoti bread is cooked in a Tandyr, which is a circular pit encased in a stone wall. The practice of making this bread consists of stretching the bread out to be long in one direction, and stuck to the side of the wall. In the center of the pit charcoal is burned to give the bread a unique smokey smell to it, this also added flavor. The bread ends up flat, curved, and crispy with an almost spongey inside, it was very good. Traditionally the shoti bread is eaten with georgia's unique cheese, but I did not like the cheese much so I just ate the bread.

Kinkhali

Another food we took a class on was Kinkhali. This is more or less a Georgian Dumpling. The dough is very thick and hard to work with at the start, you would cut a flattened piece of the dough to be a small circle, put the filling in the center, which was mostly meat. You would then take the edges of the dough, bring them over the meat and pinch it in a circular pattern. It is traditionally eaten by taking a small bite at first, and sucking all the juice out, then eating the rest only leaving the top part where the dough was pinched together.

Hachapuri

During the class on Kinkhali we also learned about Hachapuri. This is a traditional Georgian dish that has a very large similarity to pizza, the dough is more or less the same, traditional Georgian cheese is used in the center and there is no sauce, however often egg is mixed in with the cheese.