Where France uses butter, Italy uses olive oil, and Southeast Asia uses coconut, Georgia uses walnut. The walnut is the foundational fat and flavour carrier of Georgian cuisine — ground into paste, it forms the base of satsivi (cold walnut sauce for poultry), badrijani nigvzit (fried eggplant rolls with walnut-garlic paste), pkhali (vegetable-walnut patties), and kharcho (beef-and-walnut soup). Georgia's climate is ideal for walnut cultivation, and the trees grow wild across the country.
- **The walnut paste is made fresh.** Walnuts are ground (traditionally in a mortar, now often in a food processor) with garlic, fresh herbs (coriander, blue fenugreek), spices (cinnamon, clove, marigold petals), and water or broth to form a paste. This paste is the Georgian mother sauce. - **Satsivi is the benchmark.** Cold chicken (or turkey) in a thick walnut sauce flavoured with cinnamon, fenugreek, marigold, garlic, and vinegar. Served cold at room temperature — usually on New Year's Day. The sauce should coat the back of a spoon. - **Badrijani nigvzit is the universal appetiser.** Thin slices of fried eggplant rolled around a garlicky walnut paste, topped with pomegranate seeds. Present at every Georgian supra (feast). - **Pkhali is the vegetable course.** Spinach, beet greens, or cabbage blanched, chopped, and mixed with walnut paste, shaped into balls, and topped with pomegranate seeds. The walnut provides the fat, the vegetable provides the fibre, the pomegranate provides the acid.
FRENCH REGIONAL DEEP — THE STORIES ESCOFFIER NEVER WROTE