Georgian Cuisine

Georgia is situated at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, and has acquired many traditions of neighbouring countries. It has, however, preserved its unique culture embodied in its art, folklore, way of life, and of course, in wine-making and cookery.

This book will help you to find the perfect recipes for traditional Georgian dishes, and enable you to experience the spirit of the country and the world view of the people who have lived there down the ages. Specific aromas and inimitable cooking techniques will make you feel as Georgians do when they feast.

Each historical province of the country has its own culinary traditions and we have tried to illustrate at least some of them in these recipes. Mingrelians, Adzharians, Imeretians have their own culinary customs and we thought it would be interesting for you to have an opportunity to prepare, say, Khachapuri as Mingrelians do it and then to try to imagine an Imeretian mother cooking the same cheese bread for her children on the ground floor of her timber house.

Prepare Churchkhela, or sweet walnut strands, and imagine Georgian warriors who used to carry such strands as their only food when they went to war.

See in the New Year by greeting your first-footer with Gozinaki (sweets made from walnuts and honey), or familiarize yourself with the life led by Georgian peasants by making some Kharcho Soup (beef soup enriched with the flavour of tkemali, a ubiquitous bitter-sweet plum).

There isn’t a recipe for „fruit leather soup“, so I came up with Kharcho as the nearest thing …
The detailed instructions given in the recipes will help you to avoid mistakes during cooking. We hope you’ll enjoy the experience of preparing traditional Georgian delicacies!