Post by nutsberryfarm 🏜 on Apr 2, 2019 18:33:50 GMT
www.saveur.com/cheese-of-northern-georgia
Lakhamula was the last stop on my weeklong tour around the country with Ana Mikadze-Chikvaidze, who is known in local food circles as the “mother of Georgian cheese.” Until recently, Georgians had recognized only four “traditional” styles of cheese: semisoft sulguni, briny imeruli, guda (completely unrelated, confusingly, to Dutch Gouda), and karkhunli, which translates to “factory cheese.” To a foreigner, the names might sound exotic, but imagine living in a world in which we had access only to Colby, American, Swiss, and provolone.
In the past few years, though, Mikadze-Chikvaidze has helped introduce the people of her country to their lost cheese heritage, uncovering traditions that have been practiced in isolated mountain villages for generations, and bringing them to the masses. I had met Mikadze-Chikvaidze at a winery here in Georgia a few months earlier, where she told me about her mission and invited me to join her on a visit to some of these village cheesemakers. “Come,” she said that day at the winery, waving her hand as if we were going to go just then. “I will give you a preview of what people will someday see: that Georgia is a great cheesemaking country.”
Four months later, we were driving out of Tbilisi, the capital. Georgia is wedged in the Caucasus Mountains between Turkey, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Russia, and our destination was Andriatsminda, a Georgian village about 12 miles from the Turkish border. After three hours of driving, we turned off the main road and onto a steep, bumpy dirt path to the village, a jumble of rickety wooden houses clinging to the top of a mountain.
Lakhamula was the last stop on my weeklong tour around the country with Ana Mikadze-Chikvaidze, who is known in local food circles as the “mother of Georgian cheese.” Until recently, Georgians had recognized only four “traditional” styles of cheese: semisoft sulguni, briny imeruli, guda (completely unrelated, confusingly, to Dutch Gouda), and karkhunli, which translates to “factory cheese.” To a foreigner, the names might sound exotic, but imagine living in a world in which we had access only to Colby, American, Swiss, and provolone.
In the past few years, though, Mikadze-Chikvaidze has helped introduce the people of her country to their lost cheese heritage, uncovering traditions that have been practiced in isolated mountain villages for generations, and bringing them to the masses. I had met Mikadze-Chikvaidze at a winery here in Georgia a few months earlier, where she told me about her mission and invited me to join her on a visit to some of these village cheesemakers. “Come,” she said that day at the winery, waving her hand as if we were going to go just then. “I will give you a preview of what people will someday see: that Georgia is a great cheesemaking country.”
Four months later, we were driving out of Tbilisi, the capital. Georgia is wedged in the Caucasus Mountains between Turkey, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Russia, and our destination was Andriatsminda, a Georgian village about 12 miles from the Turkish border. After three hours of driving, we turned off the main road and onto a steep, bumpy dirt path to the village, a jumble of rickety wooden houses clinging to the top of a mountain.