Books |
Tasting Georgia: A Food and Wine Journey in the Caucasus
Carla Capalbo
By
Published: Sep 18, 2017
Category:
Art and Photography
The wine world’s cool kids are buzzing about Georgia.
That is, the Georgia that is bordered on the North by Russia, to the South by Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan.
If you’re interested in a culture that, 8,000 years ago, gave birth to wine-making and still makes some wine by the ancient method, I have a book for you. If you’re interested in visiting a country that is far off the tourist path, I have a tour guide for you. If you’re a foodie who wants to try dishes you won’t find in an restaurant in Amerrica, here are 70 recipes. And if you’re an armchair traveler who would never go halfway around the world even to see vistas and customs unchanged for centuries, here are 400 pictures so crisp you’d swear they were photo-shopped. [To see a portfolio of Capalbo’s photos, click here.]
All of that is in what’s fair to say is the only book you’ll ever read about this raw countryside and its charming people: “Tasting Georgia: A Food and Wine Journey in the Caucasus.” No surprise that the author is Carla Capalbo, who has made a career of profiling overlooked regions, cuisines and wines and has, over the years, produced one classic title after another.
She heard about Georgia as a child. Her mother danced under the direction of George Balanchine, whose father was a Georgian opera singer and composer. “You’d love Georgia,” she told Carla. “The food and wine are delicious, and there are cows in the roads.”
Decades later, she got interested in the Georgian wine-making tradition of burying wine in large terra-cotta casks called qvervri. The wine ages naturally, with the sediment settling in the qvervri’s pointed bottom. In any other country, you would say these are quaint traditions from as disappearing way of life — but in Georgia they endure.
In 2013, Capalbo visited Georgia. “It only took a few days for me to fall in love with the people, their food, wine and culture,” she says. Before she left, she knew she’d be doing a book. [To buy “Tasting Georgia” from Amazon, click here.]
And why not? Meals in Georgia are social events, without a rigid course structure. Small dishes cover the table. The recipes haven’t changed for centuries. They don’t need to: The stars are grilled meats, vegetables garnished with herbs, nuts and spices. At the most popular restaurant in the country, found on a side road between towns, the menu — soup dumplings, grilled pork, tarragon lemonade — hasn’t changed since 1966.
And the variety of landscapes! In the mountains, shepherds bring flocks of sheep down at the end of the day and then the sheep dutifully go off to their own homes. In a 6,600-foot-high resort town, every room in the shockingly affordable hotel has a view of the mountains. At a wine house near the Black Sea, you have lunch in the garden under a canopy.
Georgia’s culture stands everything we know on its head. To turn the pages of this book is an unsettling pleasure — you go back to a time of small family farms, people who know one another all their lives, and a definition of news that involves events no more than a valley away. If I could just time-travel…
