SOCIETY

Autumn’s Greatest Hits: Svaneti

BLOG BY TONY HANMER

The season’s fruits come out ripe: grapes, apples, pears, quinces, walnuts. The apples, at least up here, are far too many, and many rot or freeze on the trees, or fall and do likewise, the region’s most unpopular gift. We dry, boil for jams and sauces, pickle, make wine or liqueurs, or freeze what we can. Any new recipes to try, different ingredients such as spices or whatever? The cellars and under-stair spaces fi ll up with jars and bottles.

Halloween? Not up here at all, not even a whisper of it, except possibly a paragraph or two as part of traditional offerings in some of our English textbooks.

Smoke from burning harvest leftovers, especially of corn and potatoes, scents the air with the unique aroma of October. White sacks dot the potato fi elds, and our neighbors send them full to Zugdidi, where Svan potatoes are prized. They might then shovel the last year’s cow manure from the barns onto sleds, which oxen will pull to the now empty fi elds to be dumped and wait until spring comes to spread them by rake and begin the growing cycle anew.

The buyers of Svan sulguni cheese, another expensive item in Zugdidi, come through in their van, and we unload several thousand GEL of what we bought cheap and stored in brine until now, a tidy profi t. Some of it I’ve tried smoking or at least keeping in the fridge for some months instead of in the brine, with much more interesting results fl avor-wise in my opinion. Yes, the mold can be scary to look at, but (to me) it also tastes fantastic, and it’s obviously safe, because I have both lived and fl ourished to tell the tale.

People store scythed and fi eld-dried haystacks in their barns for the bovines to eat all winter. Much of this is still cut by hand, but some farmers are switching to gasoline-powered cutters now.

We layer up as temperatures fall, and consider when fi rst to light the roaring big Svan stove. (In my house, we mostly use it only for heating, not much for cooking; or we’ll add something to bake or roast when using it anyway. Electricity here in Upper Svaneti is free, so we cook as much as we can using our electric oven or single cooking ring.)

I gather all the nicely dry scrap wood from our ongoing café construction project while weather is dry, and sort it as I’m going. Sawdust fi rst, to sweep up for smoking cheese, tomatoes and other things. All the smaller pieces of wood go into sacks which I’ll store either in the barn or under the house fl oor, for dry, hassle-free access. If it’s big enough to see and pick up, I can burn it! The next size up are short enough for the stove but too wide, so, piled for splitting with the axe, then also to sack up or at least stack. Finally, another pile is of pieces both too long and too wide, so: chainsaw fi rst (this too is electric) and then split and store.

The café has a level fl oor on our land’s mild slope, which has opened up a huge new under-fl oor storage area too, and even an attic under the A-frame roof which is fi nally on. Eventually, we’ll put many things under the fl oor to keep them dry: next project’s cut wood planks and beams, stacked with spacers to dry staying fl at and not warping; extra cement blocks; shelves for smaller items (all things not tempting to petty thieves, which unfortunately cannot be discounted here). Nothing locked up, because it’s generally things which everyone else has too or doesn’t want.

The café attic might eventually take an extra rough-it guest or two in overfl ow situations, once there are stairs or at least a ladder to it. Really, though, we’re trying to cut down on having extra STUFF, because our lives are full enough with it already; so we shouldn’t be eyeing it as another place to put excess belongings. Time to chuck out or give away what we don’t need and haven’t used for years now.

People stock up on rubber boots, winter apparel, white woven plastic potato sacks, canning or preserving supplies. The shop has a buzz in seasonal turnover.

And…as always at the moment, in Georgia’s current political season, #mishavs means: “It matters to me”!

Tony Hanmer has lived in Georgia since 1999, in Svaneti since 2007, and been a weekly writer and photographer for GT since early 2011. He runs the “Svaneti Renaissance” Facebook group, now with nearly 2000 members, at www.facebook.com/ groups/SvanetiRenaissance/ He and his wife also run their own guest house in Etseri: www.facebook.com/hanmer.house.svaneti

Italian Taste by Chef Enzo Neri

INTERVIEW BY KETEVAN SKHIRTLADZE

Italian by birth, chef Enzo Neri is owner of the Vera Italiana Kitchen & Bar with his partner Niccolo Ricciardi. He has been living in Georgia for fi ve years now.

“From the fi rst few days here, I somehow knew that I would want to make Georgia my home,” Enzo tells us.

He helped start a number of restaurants, among them The Asado Steakhouse in the Mercure Hotel, and was involved in the founding of La Boheme, Bioli, Andropov’s Ears, Dinehall, and Enzo’s Ezo in Kakheti. He has also advised and consulted for a number of other restaurants in Tbilisi, including Pomodorissimo and Filini in the Radisson Hotel.

For the past twenty years, Enzo Neri has been a professional chef and has worked in Italy, England, New York, Dubai, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Montenegro, and the Caribbean, among others. “I have also traveled extensively, and when I travel, I always focus on the food. I’ve written about many of my travel experiences in my book,” he says.

Vera Italiana Kitchen & Bar is located in the Vera district and is truly an Italian masterpiece. If one wants to experience real Italy and taste Italian food, this is the place to go.

To learn more about it, GEORGIA TODAY sat down with its creator, Enzo Neri.

WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO OPEN VERA ITALIANA KITCHEN & BAR?

My business partner Niccolo Ricciardi and I felt strongly that there was a need for an authentic Italian restaurant here in Tbilisi. We planned to make some of the best pizza and pasta in the city, but we also believed that there were many other dishes, which are lacking here but are widely available throughout Italy, that would be appreciated by Georgians and foreigners alike.

As an Italian, I have always had a special love for the cuisine of my home country. While Italy is not a large country, it has an extraordinarily varied cuisine. One of our objectives in starting this restaurant was to bring some of these relatively unknown dishes here to Georgia. partly because we are located in the Vera district of Tbilisi. But “Vera” means “true” or “real” in Italian. We are a truly Italian locale. To give three examples: we serve Cichetti, which is a kind of Italian tapas popular in bars in Venice; we use Italian guanciale (a cured meat made from pig jaws) in our carbonara and amatriciana pastas; and we directly import a dozen wines from Italy, including Barolo red and the incredible Franciacorta classic method sparkling wines.

WHEN WAS THE FIRST TIME YOU CAME TO GEORGIA, AND WHAT LED YOU TO STAY HERE?

I came to Georgia at the invitation of Gia Piradashvli. Gia runs Chateau Mere in Kakheti, and he asked me to come for a week. He and his wife Nino have become great friends. I love this country, maybe, in part, because Georgians and Italians are so similar. I immediately felt at home here.

Georgian cuisine is one of my favorites. I especially love Chakapuli. If I weren’t serving Italian food to Georgians, I would probably be serving Georgian food to Italians. In fact, this is something I would love to do someday!

WAS IT EASY TO BREAK INTO THE GEORGIAN HOSPITALITY SECTOR?

Nothing is easy when you’re a perfectionist like me! But I’ve found that when it comes to business, every country – including Georgia – has its advantages and challenges. Some of the advantages here include being able to open a bank account in minutes, and establishing a company in an hour. Try doing this in New York! But, of course, there are challenges. Getting high-quality ingredients delivered on a consistent basis is one of them. Also, we need to continue to fi nd energetic and motivated people to join our growing team.

TELL US ABOUT THE VERA ITALIANA KITCHEN & BAR MENU.

Our menu has seven sections. Cichetti (or Italian fi nger foods), Antipasti, Pizzas, Pastas, Salads, Main Dishes, and Desserts. We also have a full bar serving Italian cocktails and an extensive wine list.

Although we just opened, some of the dishes that have been very popular include our house-made Ravioli with Pumpkin, our Ossobuco, and our Suppli al Telefono. Suppli is a rustic Roman street food made with rice and mozzarella resembling Sicilian Arancini. It is called “al telefono” because when you pull one of the rice croquettes apart, long strings of mozzarella stretch between the two halves, resembling an old-fashioned telephone wire. Also, trust me, our Panna Cotta must be tried.

A specialty of ours has to be Porchetta Tonnata: sliced pork covered with housemade mayonnaise, tuna, and caper sauce. This is a popular dish in Italy, but relatively unknown here. We refer to it as “Vitello Tonnato’s younger sister.” Another dish we are proud of is our Trippa Alla Fiorentina. This is classic Florentine-style Tripe cooked in wine along with the “Holy Trinity” of celery, onions, and carrots.

WHAT DISTINGUISHES YOUR RESTAURANT FROM OTHERS?

We are trying hard to be authentic and also accessible. We want our customers to feel equally as comfortable having a simple pizza and an Aperol Spritz or having a full course meal with a bottle of Italian wine.