Ancient wines, Qvevris, USSR, and a story of an almost disappeared culture and tradition, which certainly would have made our drinking experience poorer! Qvevri-what!?
A 🧵:
1/n The country of Georgia, snug in the Caucasus mnts & not far from where the Neolithic Revolution began, is still wine-crazy. And so it was for the past ~6,000 yrs. It has more than 500 local grape varieties, sign that people have been breeding & growing grapes for a long time.
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THREAD:
Skirret, Salsify, Scorzonera...
These are root vegetables, once popular, and eaten in almost every meal, in a pottage style stew mainly; it was the staple of many farmers...
What happened to them? Why don't we eat them any more?
1/x The thing is, since the arrival of potato and sweet potato, the two of them replaced the fiddly, soil-clinging roots above, with big, nutritious tubers from South America! Commercial production of these new vegetables was easier, hence, the old fashioned staples,
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