Sidetracked: "My Grandmother's Table: Hiking in Upper Svaneti"

A rich round of homemade food servings and strong women at the head of their families are some of the impressions photographer and traveller Jessie Leong puts into words from her visit to Georgia's mountainous Svaneti province, in an article for Sidetracked travel magazine.

Leong was hosted at guesthouses dotting the remote, mountainous north-western province she was able to access along with her colleagues thanks to The Transcaucasian Trail, a network of hiking paths connecting natural parks and picturesque locations across the South Caucasus states.

[M]ealtime offered a traditional depiction of rural family life, a culture that had poignant tones of nostalgia and celebration of a life surrounded by strong, proud women in their steady routine, looking after fleeting visitors, echoing the same relationship between myself and my own grandma" - Jessie Leong

In the piece the British-based photographer tells about her experience of being hosted at family guesthouses with hospitality and attention to communal dining that for her was a certain throwback to past times with her own grandmother.

A major portion of the travel impressions is dedicated to mentions of the homemade food offered by hosts in the high-lying location that is home to a UNESCO World Heritage Site. From the "wonderfully herby" local variety of salt to aubergine stew to khatchapuri cheese bread and cow cheese itself. The type of meals even offered the visitors a surprise:

We’d wrongly suspected that Georgian mountain food would consist of hideously salty meats, or endless beige food; instead we were greeted with produce that had been carefully tendered out of allotments, plucked from ground to plate" - Jessie Leong

Accentuated with the photographer's memories with meals at her grandmother's, the report of the trip that saw the travellers hop between guesthouse spots, is provided as a certain example of a "nostalgia of a communal meal", from ingredients of the food to the attitude of the gatherings themselves.

Read the full story here.