Gamarjoba! Time is going super fast, I have been here for more than seven months now. That means only three months left for me! Luckily, we have a lot planned for those months, not only bigger projects in the scout center but also our own travel plans.
I have written a lot about where we went and what we did, but now I want to tell you a bit more about Georgian culture, or more specific, the Georgian cuisine. Georgian traditional food is quite special, but the people are also very proud of it. One of the most common questions we get here is "do you like khinkali?" or "do you prefer khachapuri or lobiani?". Yes, the food is quite special and unique here, but the most special for me is the eating culture. Supra, the traditional festive dinner, is one of the most important parts of Georgian culture. A supra is a big dinner with lots of food and lots of drinking, led by a tamada, the toastmaster. The tamada is responsible for entertaining the guests for the whole evening. Supra is not just a normal big dinner, it can continue until deep in the night, often includes dancing or singing together, and it has a lot of rules. To begin with, the tamada has to make a lot of toasts about different topics, traditionally in a specific order, and after each toast the other guests can one by one add something to it, or the tamada can choose someone who will elaborate on his toast. The topics that are always mentioned are the homeland, God, peace, the guests, the family and friends. If a toast really speaks to you, you can empty your glass in one go, to show respect to the topic. There is also a merikipe whose task it is to make sure all glasses are filled at all times.
I experienced smaller supra’s multiple times, but the best experience was when we were invited to a friend’s home in the small village Zoti, in Guria. Here we experienced a real big supra, with a big table packed with every type of traditional food and a lot of toasting and dancing continuing until late into the night. Not only the hosting family, but also a lot of neighbors came to eat and dance with us. Although they didn’t speak English and we did not understand most toasts, we had a lot of fun. We could stay at the house overnight with them, us girls sleeping in the house with the women and Anias in another house with the men. The next day for breakfast, to our surprise, the supra just continued. For breakfast we got all the food from the supra the previous day again, plus porridge and fresh milk from their cows. We also got wine again with our breakfast, so everyone just continued eating and drinking and toasting, us sitting a bit surprised in between.
After this big breakfast, they showed us around in the village and at the local school. Everyone seemed really happy to receive foreigners in their village, because we were even led into the classes to be introduced to the head of the school and the children, in the middle of their lessons. After introducing ourselves, some children suddenly stood up and started to recite Georgian poems for us.
Supra and breakfast
One of the neighbors invited us to their house for lunch, what meant having a whole new supra there. They were all really kind, but at this point we were so full of all the food and felt a bit tired of the overload of Georgian toasts, the drinking and all the places they wanted to show us, that we were quite happy to be back in a quiet Marschrutka bakc to Rustavi that evening. However, this was the best cultural experience I have had here and I am super glad I was able to experience this!
Not only this special dinner, the traditional food itself is also something the Georgian people are very proud of, and for good reason. I love Georgian food, although I did not have a good start. The first evening me and Renée arrived here, it was quite late and we hadn’t eaten yet, so Aleks bought us a khachapuri from a bakery. When we got home, the khachapuri was cold already. It was quite greasy and heavy and I really did not like it. Before coming here, people had promised me the food would be so good, but now I was asking myself if that was really true. However, I soon discovered other Georgian delicacies I immediately liked: lobio (beans in a clay pot), khinkali (Georgian dumplings, the best with mushrooms!), adjarian khachapuri, mexican potatoes, badrijani nigvzit (eggplant rolls), churchgela (grape walnut sweets) and much more. By now, I am very fond of Georgian food, including the more greasy khachapuri form bakeries. I now often get one from the bakery myself, and I know I will miss it very much when I return home!
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