In Eastern Georgia you will be offered wheat bread baked on the walls of "tone", which is a large cylinder-like clay oven, resembling a jar, while in Western Georgia you will be treated to hot maize scones "Mchadi" baked on clay frying-pans "ketsi".
Soup lovers will be delighted with the fiery rice & mutton soup "kharcho", the tender chicken soup "chikhirtma" with eggs whipped in vinegar & the transparent light meat broth flavored with garlic, parsley & fennel.
Even the most experienced gourmand will not be able to resist the savory "chizhi-pizhi", pieces of liver and spleen roasted in butter and whipped eggs, crisp chicken "tabaka" served with the pungent sourish sauce "satsivi". The famous dishes include the melting-in-the-mouth sturgeon on a spit and sauce; the chicken sauce "chakhokhbili" in a hot tomato & dressing, the Kakhetian dish "chakapuli" made of young lamb in a slightly sourish juice of damson, curds & onion; roasted small sausages "kupati" stuffed with finely chopped pork, beef and mutton mixed with red pepper & barberries.
Everyone in Georgia is fond of "Khashi", a broth cooked from beef entrails, legs, stomach, udder, pieces of head & bones then lavishly seasoned with garlic. There exists, certainly, a justly deserved opinion that "the onion soup in Paris and the khashi soup in Tbilisi" serve the same purpose. They are eaten by the same people - "by hard workers to make themselves stronger & by revelers to cure a hangover". E. Evtushenko's wrote: "Everyone who saws, transports, builds, sweeps the neighbouring streets, makes shoes, digs ditches eats khashi in the morning".
Admirers of "Khinkali" - peppered mutton dumplings, a favorite dish of the mountain dwellers of Georgia, just keeps growing in number. Like everywhere in the Caucasus region, "mcvadi" or "shashlik" is very popular in Georgia. Depending upon the season, it is made of pork, mutton or chunks of aubergines (eggplants) stuffed with sheep's tail fat & tomatoes.
The majestic splendor of Georgian cuisine is backed up by their famous white & dry red wines, from which everyone selects the wine to one's taste: "Mukhuzani" with a pleasant bitter taste, golden cool "Tetra" light straw-coloured "Tsinandali" with a crystal sourish touch, dark amber-colored slightly astrigent "Teliani", ruby-colored "Ojaleshi" with a mildly sweet, emerald-like sparkling "Manavi", garnet-red honey-tasting "Kindzmarauli", and dark ruby-coloured velvety "Khvanchkara", light-green "Gurjaani" dark golden fruity "Tibaani" as well as many others. If you add the best-brand cognacs, champagne, not to mention remarkable mineral waters & fruit drinks, to Georgian wines you can begin to imagine what pleasures Georgian cuisine holds for you.
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