Georgia is an endearing country as much by its inhabitants, its heritage as by its gastronomy: the favourite trio of the French also exists there: bread, wine and cheese!
When I crossed the Azerbaijan-Georgia border, I couldn’t wait to sit at the table of a good typical Georgian restaurant. When we travel for a long time, as happy as we are to discover the world, after a while, the ardent desire for a good flowing cheese accompanied by a crispy baguette with a delicate crumb, all washed down with a glass of scarlet wine becomes almost obsessive. “Yes,” I thought to myself, “they’ve been making wine here for ages! It’s impossible that they haven’t invented the cheese that goes with it! And who says cheese… says bread!”
Georgian wine is good! Different but really good. What about bread then?
Bread is a pillar of Georgian gastronomy. It is almost always present on the table. Its shape is quite particular: an oval ending with a point at each end.
Interesting detail, bakeries are often located in the basement. A simple cellar can house the essentials to make and sell bread: a round oven, a table to make the dough pieces and a soupirail through which the order is passed to the customer! The lavash is to be devoured just when it comes out of the oven. After 10 minutes, it will turn into chewing gum. It will then have to be put in the oven or in the toaster. The choice is very limited, as in neighbouring countries, there are not many variations of bread. But no matter, this bread is typical. It is not a pale imitation of a sour and dry baguette, it is the real Georgian bread, dear to the heart of its inhabitants, which keeps its promises: it goes perfectly with the two other essentials of Georgian gastronomy: wine and cheese.
In Georgia, there are good cheeses. No wonder, what better companion for wine?
Cheese in Georgia? There are a lot of them: fresh, dry, pressed cooked and uncooked pasta, some blue-veined pasta… but I haven’t seen any soft pasta with bloomy or washed rinds. But all the same, in Georgia there are hundreds of different cheeses, which makes its gastronomy particularly rich.
The cheeses are often very salty. Don’t hesitate to ask the salesman for a “lightly salted” cheese to vary the pleasures. Just like wine, they have pretty names ending with i: Megrouli, Gourouli or the delicious Nadoughi, this farmhouse white cheese which can be eaten salted with a few aromatic herbs. The Imérouli looks like the Italian mozzarella and it is the masterpiece of Khatchapouri.
All of them deserve to be tasted, there are many of them, and to our delight, they are mostly the product of a traditional, rarely industrial production.
The best cheeses are to be found on the farmers’ markets, straight from the farmers’ fields. Yoghurt accompanied by fruit coulis, honey or jam, faisselle, dense and creamy fromage frais, smoked spun pasta, fragrant cooked pasta, the choice is consequent and it is a real pleasure to compose a real cheese platter, to uncork some Georgian vintages and to spend the evening with locals!
Another curiosity: there is also a cheese called gouda made from sheep’s milk which has curdled and fermented in a sheep’s stomach. A cheese with character!
So no smelly cheese in Georgia?
O despair! Goodbye Camembert, carré, crottin and Coulommiers! Goodbye bleating ewe’s logs, brick and matured Brie! Where are you Pérail and Maroilles the faous stinky cheese? Who knows, maybe our Georgian friends will one day develop this type of creamery? But let’s come back to Georgia and discover the jewels of Georgian gastronomy…
So do honour to local products. Georgian cheeses have strong, mild, full-bodied, smoky flavours that go perfectly with Georgian wines
They are really irresistible melted in a khatchapouri, an Atchma or an Elardji: creamy, silky, strong in taste! Enough to give some lessons to those who serve us this insipid mush that we invariably find on our frozen pizzas! Bravo Georgia!
This beautiful country has been hoping for a few years to become part of the great family of the European Union. If it were up to me and from a purely gastronomic point of view, I would welcome them to our table with open arms. A country of wine, bread and cheese, it is worth respecting!
In Georgia, we don’t joke about gastronomy. Feasting around a table must respect tradition!
The world is rich in tastes, the journey will make you discover them!
