Georgia – genetic center in Caucasus

Ema  Tukhiashvili
Georgia is one of the ancient centers of growing cereals and baking bread. ‘Dedas puri’,’ Lavashi’, ‘Sweet nazuqi’- these sorts of bread are heartily served to the guests in every corner of Georgia even today. The bread baked in Georgian ‘tohne’ has special taste and flavor and for this reason any guest who arrives in Georgia has to taste Georgian bread and learn about Georgian bread-baking traditions.
In Georgian folk tales special emphasis is made on bread. Besides, every Christian knows that when participating in the Eucharist, bread and wine symbolically embody the Savior’s flesh and blood.
In the villages of Kartli and Kakheti you won’t find a family without a tohne. This is the place where bread is baked. Tohne is a bottomless bakery made of clay that is dug deep into the ground. It is heated with the help of brushwood or vine twigs and on the hot walls of tohne bread of different shape is baked. If the wheat is ground in a watermill the bread baked of such flour has even better taste and aroma.
Giorgi Gotsiridze (PhD, professor): ‘When studying the Caucasus region, Georgia was viewed as one of the cultural, independent genetic centers of developing the cereals. Thus, one shouldn’t be amazed that our people has been following the tradition of baking bread since ancient times. This is proven by archaeological excavations. Approximately after the Neolithic period bread-baking means were unearthed in archaeological finds that unequivocally prove that bread-baking was introduced in everyday life.
The initial shape of bread was gruel, not baked bread. Varieties of such gruel - Korkoti, Tsandili or Kolio are even nowadays represented in Georgian cuisine. Boiled wheat, separated or unseparated from chaff is seasoned with oil and salt or honey and walnuts. According to corresponding studies, bread-baking was first originated in Egypt. The slaves who were building pyramids were given gruel. One of them put the gruel under the scorching sun and it got baked.
According to the ethnographic material in every part of Georgia, in the mountains as well as plains they used to bake bread. Later, vertical and horizontal means of baking- tohne and purne appeared in the plains. In Kartli and Kakheti the bread baked in tohne is also called ‘deda’s puri’ (mother’s bread). Earlier, for fermentation of dough they use sour dough – ‘bread’s mother’, hence the name of the bread. Today the dough can be fermented in several hours while earlier it took whole night. Therefore, such bread retains good taste, smell and aroma for a long time.
Today the former variety of bread shape is lost but unified, refined form is retained as ‘dziri’s’ bread that can be found in annals as ‘gurgvali’, long and short ‘shoti’ – new- moon-shape bread. In Kartli they bake shorter ones while in Kakheti they are longer, sword-shape ‘shoties’, because the tohnes are bigger. Besides, there are several types of ‘lavashi’:  round, oval and ‘Ikalto-type’ ones.
In order to retain its taste qualities, the bread was kept in a chest or bin or put on wooden network and covered with cloth.
Q. – Is very thin ‘lavashi’ a variety of Georgian bread?
A. – No, such ‘lavashi’ isn’t Georgian. Generally, ‘lavash’ is an Armenian word. This kind of bread is characteristic of nomadic people and it’s baked on a frypan put above fire. In Armenian language such bread is called ‘lavash’ and in Azerbaijani – ‘fatir’. This type of bread is also used for combined food and they wrap meat, cheese and greens in it. Such thin bread was baked in Kartli, Georgia and it was called ‘ukha’. It was served for cracking and eating.