Tasty stuff

Continuing the last post, it is of course a long way to become a local and as foreigner you will never fully achieve this. However, the next obvious step is to learn about the local food.

Food comes from nature so let's listening to Fauna Flash - Mother Nature.

Georgia is famous for its filled bread. This image gives an overview about them:

Different types of filled bread.

I still don't know which ones contain what so it is always a surprise. Their taste differs strongly depending where you bought it. In any case it is a good advice to ask the bakers to put them into a microwave. This improves the taste for most sorts. If warming is not good, they will tell you that.
Some of the dumplings only look that way but are cakes. But the kind people here will tell you this.

Khachapuri and meat balls. This khachapuri was the medium version and was
so substantial that I could only eat it with the kind help of Amanda.

I try to eat food made in Georgia. The choice is small because Georgia is a small country. So if I cannot find Georgian food, I buy Russian, Turkish, Armenian or Azerbaijan food. This way I ate e.g. Belgian chocolate made in Russia and it was good.
For drinks the choice is unexpectedly large. There are many sorts of beer which I all liked and many sorts of lemonade. My favorite lemonade here is one with the taste of tarragon. One day I had minor problems with my stomach and a woman in a 24/24 store recommended to drink "real" mineral water. And it is indeed different, it tastes salty and the same time suppresses the thirst. I cannot remember when I only drank litre during one day. (I doubt it also cured my stomach problem.)

"real" mineral water
 

Tarragon lemonade. It doesn't actually
contain tarragon but I like it nevertheless.

Fruits are sold in almost every small shop. One can only buy seasonal food which is in my opinion sensible. Apples are therefore the most offered fruits. The fruit market is in front of the central station. It is not a nice market since the fruits are sold directly from the trucks. The upper floor of the hall is used like a normal market hall. 75% if its area was unused and the dozens of unused vitrines had a thick layer of dust on them. So something must have happened with the market. I assume that people prefer to buy their things in the small shops or in the new supermarkets. However one can buy there still fish, meat and sweets.

The fruit market.

Unused vitrines.

One of only two stands selling fish.

A specialty of Georgia are Churchkhela. In the fruit market are some stands offering different types and letting you taste before you buy something. I bought one filled with walnuts and can recommend it.

A Churchkhela.

The same one opened.

For more information about Georgian food see the this article.
There is of course also a dark side - German food! German food is obviously the cheapest one in the world and I have never been in a country where food is cheaper than in Germany (despite Germans have a very high salary). But why do people want to eat this? The supermarkets for the richer people advertise German food as something special but offer only the cheapest sorts. Every German supermarket brand has their own brand for cheap food. And these things are sold here for the double price. One can find here also more expensive German brands, for example for fruit juices. They must be able to sell their products so cheap that the long transport with trucks is still cheaper than the local or e.g. Turkish juices. This is not good for the environment and also not for the local companies.

The Schwarzwälder Schinken cost in Germany
about 1,6 € and here about 4,8 €.