A taste of Georgian culture: Grape harvesting and khinkali making

In October I got to know Georgian culture even better. Together with the other volunteers I did various cultural activities, about which I will write in this blog.

Grape picking

At the start of the month, we were invited to help with grape harvest by the uncle of Aleks. At the house of Aleks Uncle, we were welcomed very warmly. In Georgian culture it is very important to take good care of your guests. We were offered coffee and tea and all kinds of cookies and other sweet treats. Even though it was still quite early, it was not really accepted if you did not want to drink or eat anything. Lia explained that it is very important for Georgians to take good care of their guests. In Georgia it is even a saying that every guest is a gift from God. So it is very important for Georgians that you as a guest are comfortable and have enough to eat and drink. For me, it was interesting to see this, because Dutch people are not as hospitable as Georgians.

After the coffee break we started picking the grapes. We had to throw the grapes in large buckets and then we had to take them to the shed. Here the grapes went through a machine, which crushed them. What I found striking is that in Georgia they make wine from the grapes including the twigs. I expected that we had to remove the grapes from the twigs first, but this turned out not to be necessary. While the grapes were going through the machine we could taste wine the volunteers made last year. Again, no was not really an option, so I tried some wine at 10:30 in the morning. Before you could taste the wine, you had to give a toast. And you were only allowed to hold your wine glass in your right hand while drinking the wine. I don't remember exactly why you had to do this, but it was a bit complicated for left-handed me. After a few hours, we were done picking the grapes. Aleks' uncle showed us how he makes chacha, a typical Georgian drink. It was cool to learn a bit more about the process of wine and chacha making!

Khinkali making

Later this month Aleks gave us a Khinkali workshop. Together with Aleks we made different kinds of Khinkali. Aleks already prepared the dough and the filling. There were three types of filling: beef, pork and cheese. We had to divide the dough in small balls. Next we had to roll these balls flat. Then we filled the Khinkali. This was quite complicated, because the liquid from the filling kept leaking out. After filling the Khinkali, the Khinkali still had to cook in a large pan for about 10 minutes. Then the Khinkali were ready to eat. I have to say that they were not the best Khinkali I have ever tasted, but it was really fun to make them!

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