Ask for traditional khinkali - save your bread

We don't even notice that generations are growing up in Sakartvelo with a misconception about the outstanding dish of Kartvelian cuisine – khinkali.

We share this same idea with visitors to our country. The shape of the vast majority of khinkali prepared in Sakartvelo differs significantly from traditional khinkali.

The writer Dato Turashvili nicknamed these khinkali "Soviet khinkali," and they are also jokingly called "khinkali with a handle."

"Soviet khinkali," also known as "khinkali with a handle," are characterized by a very large, pouch-shaped tail.

Typically, the tail of these khinkali, due to its large size, does not cook/boil with the rest of the khinkali and is inedible. When eating khinkali, this tail functions as a handle; the khinkali is picked up and held by grasping it with the hand or by sticking a fork into it.

After using it for this purpose, the tail is usually discarded and not eaten. Remember, each of us often taught our guests this "rule" for eating khinkali, instructing them not to eat the tail and to discard it.

According to the most rough estimates, up to 3 million kilograms of khinkali tails are thrown away in Sakartvelo every year.

There's no equivalent in world cuisine where almost a third of the edible portion of a dish is thrown away. Such a dish cannot be Kartvelian, given that Sakartvelo has historically been a land of farmers, where wheat, grains, and bread were prized.

A joint ethnographic study by the Association and the National Museum of Sakartvelo, the first scientific study in this area, has established that khinkali are a mountain product of Sakartvelo, prepared from ingredients grown through the traditional livestock farming and agriculture of the mountain people—barley, rye, wheat, beef or lamb, and wild mountain plants and spices.

Can you imagine someone in the mountains, in harsh conditions, using hard-won wheat and barley to make khinkali and throwing away a third of it?! Of course not!

Traditional khinkali are round and flat, shaped like a flatbread, with a small tail that's fully cooked and eaten with the rest of the khinkali.

Perhaps restaurants will object and say there aren't enough hands for every customer, requiring them to buy mechanical equipment that produces the elongated shape. To this, I'd say it's best not to do such a thing at all and not to mislead anyone. This is an unscrupulous approach and a mockery of the traditions of mountain cuisine.

With the support of the National Khinkali Association of Sakartvelo.

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