Newsweek: "Georgian chefs put a contemporary twist on traditional recipes"

The new flavour of Georgian cuisine that mixes traditional food with modern recipes is a symbol of the country's evolving nature, writes Wendell Potter and Wendell Steavenson in a new piece for Newsweek magazine.

Despite the "extraordinary transformation" of Georgia since the post-civil war years of the 1990s the country still harbours its cultural sensibilities - not least in the culinary field, say the authors.

I should have known that the nation that culturally resisted centuries of imperial conquests by the Ottomans, Persians and Russians by maintaining its traditions of feasting and winemaking would not have fallen for the bland global mush of hamburgers and pizza and sushi," said the ladies.

Their impressions include a quick glance at the hotspots of Georgia’s capital Tbilisi, where visitors can find trademark local food and wine, as well as places where contemporary cooking and ingredients mix with the customary servings:

Try [local chef Tekuna Gachechiladze's] quince soup, a complex melange of sweet and sour and umami, made with salt from the high mountain villages of Svaneti. Or taste a carpaccio of trout with fresh green apple to soothe the adjika, a fiery red pepper condiment."

Anecdotes in the article involve not only Georgian hosts but foreign travellers and owners of local food spots, like Danish host Tobias Dyreborg and his Scandinavian restaurant in Tbilisi.

He ushered us in from the cold, poured us a glass of wine and showed us his shelves of honeys—Svanetian blueberry, Kazbegi caramel chestnut—that he had gathered from producers and hives all over the country. He had come to Georgia and been beguiled, as I had, by the abundance and deliciousness of an unexplored terroir," write the authors.

Read the full article here: europe.newsweek.com