While visiting Georgia we ate enough bread to keep someone in business for a very long time! Georgians make there bread like no other country in the world...at least from what we have researched. They begin by making a special yeast dough. They spread this dough onto a tool that looks like a small pillow covered with stretched leather. This allows the baker to reach inside of this kiln-like oven (made of clay and shaped like a dome with an opening at the top and a fire built inside on the bottom) and plop the dough onto the inner oven wall. The dough hangs on for "dear life" as it rises and bakes. When the bread has finished baking, the baker than grabs two sticks, one with a hook to grab the baked bread and the other with a blade to help pry the bread off the inner wall. The timing of baking is especially important since the bread will fall off if overcooked and can be undercooked if taken out too early. If taken out too early, the bread cannot be simply stuck back in the oven...unless there is cooking glue?!
As far as taste, consistency and texture...the bread is slightly chewy, risen due to the yeast, lightly crusty on the outside and tastes AMAZING!
Check out the pictures that we captured as we experienced this unique and original way of baking bread....Sorry we did not capture photographs of us actually eating the bread since our hands were very busy and our brains completely overtaken by our olfactory glands: ) You'll just have to take us at our word!
