On the Table

Georgia is full of exciting, delicious, and sometimes strange food. As much as I want to include descriptions of everything interesting I eat, these details often get left out of my longer blog posts. My solution - a series of posts dedicated purely to all of the curious cuisine I encounter here.

This time of year is a big one for making preserves and compotes here in Samegrelo and, as I have gathered, all over Georgia. Families buy huge quantities of tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, and various summer fruits, in order to bottle or jar them in the form of sauces and spreads. 

When I returned from visiting friends in Zugdidi last night, I entered the kitchen to discover that my host mother had spent the day filling large glass jars with what smelled like the most delicious spaghetti sauce I have ever encountered. Irma informed me that this sauce that smelled as though it was made primarily from tomatoes, garlic, and onions was called ajika. We ate it that night spread across cucumber halves or hearty chunks of bread. My host mother's eye grew wide at the liberal portions I spread for myself. It did taste a little like spaghetti sauce, only there was a good deal of heat from the spicy peppers included in the recipe. 

At the end of our meal my host mothered retrieved her purse from the house and began pulling items out and placing them on the table. I recognized a packet of what is basically hot chocolate mix and a chocolate bar with Russian packaging, but could not guess what the third item she produced was. It look a little like grey mud packed into a block and then wrapped in plastic. Irma was searching for the word she needed to describe it to me and eventually pointed to the Sunflower on a bottle of oil from the kitchen. It turns out this little treat, called khalva, was made of ground sweetened sunflower seeds. It was sugary and rich. I enjoyed it but had trouble finishing the huge portion they cut of the block for me.