Feature: Churchkhela, the Georgian energy bar
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E-mail Xinhua, January 6, 2013
Churchkhela in Georgia, like cotton candy or candy floss elsewhere, is a candy of special treat for occasions like New Year celebrations.
Originated in the South Caucasus country, churchkhela is also made and liked in Russia, Turkey, Greece and Cyprus. Because of its sausage shape, it is known in Turkey as walnut sausage literally.
Churchkhela making starts after each year's harvest of grapes in Georgia, where grandmas and grandpas are often seen string halved walnuts and whole hazel nuts onto heavy-duty cotton threads.
The nut strings are dipped repeatedly into boiling grape juice thickened with wheat flour.
Finished products are then hung on bamboo and wooden sticks to dry their sweet-sour coats.
Almonds and raisins are also used as the insides of churchkhela, which usually measures 25 to 35 centimeters in length.
But this year, a 78-year-old villager in eastern Georgia produced a special churchkhela he could boast of, not only among fellow villagers but hopefully around the world with a Guinness record.
From the Khahetian village of Gulgula, Simon Gigitelashvili is preparing to be registered to the inclusive world record compilation with his 8-meter-long churchkhela.
It cost Gigitelashvili 28 litres of fresh grape juice, 7 kilograms of wheat flour and 2 kilograms of walnuts. It took him two whole hours to pull off the super long churchkhela.
It was not the first time for this churchkhela-loving villager to make super long churchkhela. In 2011, he made a 3.65-meter-long churchkhela.
Even the thickened grape juice must has become a popular by-product of churchkhela making. During the Christmas and New Year holidays, people in Georgia can be seen scooping bites of pinkish grape juice jellies from various convenient containers, the best ones being transparent plastic cups and boxes.
Though the Georgians take much pride of their churchkhela, they face a problem of technicality to commercialize their sausage candies, which they liken to the American chocolate-coated nut sweets known as energy bars. They often say that their churchkhela is the oldest such candy in the world.
Georgian legends have it that ancient South Caucasian warriors would consume churchkhela whenever they took to battling it out.
Like their proud wines and mineral waters, the Georgians would like to export as much churchkhela as they can produce.
Gvantsa Meladze, an official from the Georgian export promotion department under the economy ministry, said one Georgian company has started trying to sell churchkhela via the Internet.
But one problem facing this online exporter is the cost of international transport.
Maia Jajanashvili has explained that transporting six Internet-ordered churchkhelas costs at least 154 U.S. dollars. Each sausage of churchkhela sells between 1 and 2 dollars in Georgia.
"Transportation of 5,000 churchkhelas by plane costs 3,500 Georgian laris (2,121 dollars), so selling just a few churchkhelas upon Internet orders would simply not be profitable," she added.
Another problem is the lack of publicity in foreign countries outside Georgian communities.
The Georgian agriculture ministry has orchestrated several special events to popularize churchkhela and is mulling international publicity events in the future.
There is still another problem that potential churchkhela producers in Georgia have to deal with.
Productivity is limited by grape harvest seasons as well as by efforts thrown into churchkhela making, which differ from household to household in the country.
Despite these weaknesses, Georgian churchkhela is already being exported to Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Kazakhstan, Lithuania and New Zealand, thanks to its believed health benefits.
Health-comes-first theoreticians tend to think Georgian energy bars are healthier than their American counterparts. For one normal-length sausage, people get 210 calories with only 4.9 grams of fat plus the various nutrients people can get from grapes and nuts. Endi
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