Tasting Georgia: A Food and Wine Journey in the Caucasus with Over 70 Recipes

The definitive cookbook on Europe's great unsung cuisines... Carla Capalbo's Tasting Georgia shows off the culinary gem of the Caucasus... Tasting Georgia is without question the best book ever written in English about Georgian food and wine. Equal parts cookbook, photo journal, and travel guide, it is an invitation into country kitchens where meat-stuffed flatbreads bake, cilantro-scented stews bubble, and river trout sizzle. Georgia's greatest culinary hits are all accounted for in Capalbo's book, from the Instagram-famous cheese canoe called ajaruli khachapuri to the fist-sized soup dumplings called khinkali. But what sets Tasting Georgia apart is its laser focus on hyper-specific town-by-town cuisines and the people behind them... Every dish is brought to life by colorful, intimate photography.
This food-, culture-, and history-centric travelogue will make readers yearn to visit the independent democracy of Georgia. Capalbo, an American journalist based in Europe, knows her subject intimately. In addition to the brilliant photographs and 65-plus recipes, Capalbo introduces the warm hospitality and amazing wine regions of this country the size of Scotland.... Everything's showcased against Capalbo's realistic pictures of people and scenery, along with good historical bytes. Georgia peaches in a whole different light.?
"Georgian cuisine is known for its use of pungent herbs, vegetable-forward dishes, and artisan-made comfort food ... In Tasting Georgia, award-winning food writer and photographer Carla Capalbo highlights why the country is such an intriguing gastronomic destination. Proving international cookbooks are multidimensional: This vegetarian-friendly assortment includes more than 70 recipes and covers Georgian history, authentic cooking techniques, and practical travel insights."
The book is fantastic- beautiful, fascinating and also moving, important and written from the heart.
Ancient, enigmatic Georgia, enviably positioned between the Caucasus Mountains and the Black Sea, lays claim to one of history's greatest civilizing feats: the first domestication of wild grapes more than five thousand years ago. This means that Georgian grape growers developed the genetic ancestors of all the noble winemaking vinifera (Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, etc.) now grown the world over. Forevermore, every Champagne toast should begin and end with Georgia on your mind. The latest of Carla Capalbo's dozen-plus regional books that expansively cover the culture of food and wine production- chefs, farmers, winemakers, grape growers, recipes, in-depth historical detail, and high-quality photography- Tasting Georgia divvies up the country into ten regions (ten chapters), from capital city Tbilisi in the southeast to Guria and Adjara on the northern Black Sea coast. And while the style of cooking and local dishes are distinct as you move about, and interesting details about the country's lengthy, complicated history keep the pages turning, it's the photos and descriptions of individual winemaking operations still utilizing thousand-year-old methods that capture the imagination. An agricultural country of stunning beauty far removed from the bustle of tourism-weary Western Europe, Capalbo has done the great service of bringing the country's treasures within reach of any visitor through the use of maps, listings of hundreds of places of interest, and suggested itineraries.
A book that shows the world perhaps one of the last undiscovered great food cultures of Europe.
"At first glance, you might mistake this doorstop of a book for a cookbook. It's true that it is filled with recipes on Georgian dishes, a cuisine that the world is finally and slowly discovering and loving. But Capalbo's book is so much more. It's a history. It's a travel guide. The work that went into this book is seriously impressive. Spend a few hours with it and you'll get up feeling like you really learned something about this wonderful country in the Caucus Mountains. And you'll point yourself to the nearest Georgian restaurant.
"With characteristic empathy and engagement, Carla has documented Georgia's unique gastronomic traditions and the people who have fought so hard to preserve them."--Carlo Petrini, Founder of Slow Food