Making Churchela

 I'd like to lay claim to making the time these days to undergo such a project without an ulterior motive; but alas this not such a project. Turns out adding in a "for fun" 4 credit course is not maybe the best idea when trying to balance out an unusually hectic fall but needless to say a anthropology of food class has provided some interesting learning opportunities. Spending a Sunday afternoon making  Churchela with a group of lovely ladies from my class proved to be quite an experience. Churchela stems from Georgia among other places. The most simplistic explanation: a string of nuts dipped in a condensed grape juice left to dry which creates a sweet, candy-like treat.

I had been on a ankle rolling endeavor to collect the walnuts hidden among the grass in S's front yard and they turned out to come in quite handy for this project. Another one of my churchela comrades collected the end of the season grapes from a neighbors yard. We dug up string and needles and the project commenced. 

We mashed the grapes down in a big pot, bringing it to a boil until the liquid began to thicken. Straining out seeds and skins, we returned the liquid to the pot and put it over low heat until it reduced itself to a near 3rd of what it had been. The meantime found us cracking and stringing walnuts (and attempting hazelnuts...no go- they broke and ended up in bellies instead of on strings)  

When the grape juice was ready, we thickened it ever so slightly more with a handful of flour. The best part then: dipping the strings so they became gooey messes. Finally hanging them to dry for a few days and va-la Churchela. We had four of us working on the project and we figure that we spent somewhere in the realm of four hours to make our ordeal; in reality the project required something like 16 hand hours to make. Probably not something I'd just whip up on a whim but pretty damn cool to see the process through. Our first crack at the time-honored Georgian treat looked not so much like the pictures I pulled up on the internet; we later determined we needed the grape liquid to have reduced even more. Even still, the best part came in the process of making, the wine drinking that paralleled the project and the conversations.

This whole project was brought on by the visit of Ken Albala, a do it yourself food advocate. I picked up his book "the lost art of real cooking" which offers some great recipes that connect the maker back into the process. Albala's Blog covers a whole array of projects and recipes and is more than worth the visit.