No-one knows for sure when the first spices were used in cooking in Georgian dishes, but today it’s impossible to imagine the special ties of Georgian cuisine without those flavors. In the Tbilisi of my childhood, on the noisy territory of the Deserters’ Market, you would often see sellers of dry spices; cheerful grannies with constant suntans and colored headscarves, selling coriander and saffron in wooden cups the size of small vodka glasses which you were not allowed to bargain for. You may still come across such grannies in the agricultural markets and streets of Tbilisi but the aromas of those colorful spices do not have the same sharpness they had before. This is why I would advise real gourmands to buy spices not in the city markets and supermarkets but in Georgian villages themselves.
It is known that spices were brought to Georgia from the East and quickly became well established. The most popular spice is coriander- it suits a wide variety of dishes and is the leader in the cuisine of all regions of Georgia. It can stand a moderate winter and can be harvested all through the year. Seeds of dry coriander, in combination with other spices, suit meat and walnut dishes. Fresh coriander seeds squashed with garlic make sauces incredibly tasty and dry seeds go well with the pepper sauce Ajika.
The crown of the Georgian table is trigonella, which can also be seen in African and Argentinean cuisines, used together with dry spices. The sharpest flavored trigonella can be found in Samegrelo. Compared to coriander it needs more care – growing and keeping it requires special techniques. Satsivi, baje (walnut sauces), and pkhali (dishes with different types of greens) are unimaginable without it. Svanetian salt also includes trigonella.
Dry wild basil adds a special taste to Georgian meat dishes. We should not forget the pennyroyal of magic taste, which grows in many places in Georgia, often wild. Laurel also grows in the wild and its leaves can be well kept all through the year.
When speaking about meat dishes, we should also remember caraway. It is very good for fatty dishes as it helps food diges- tion. It goes very well with Khinkali, Shila, and Svanetian Kubdari. Caraway is good in combination with red and black pepper.
Certain spices divide Georgia geographically. For example, in eastern Georgia spices brought from Asia are more common– dry dill, celery, basil, wild basil, and mint. And there is no set rule; cooks often decide the amount of spices to use in this or that Georgian dish based on their visual consideration and intuition.
Georgian spices are already available in European markets, including foreign online shops (Amazon.com and others).
WHERE TO BUY:
- Freedom Square (street traders)
- The Spice Shop in the tunnel under Freedom Square
- Station Square Market