Pogaca bread in Georgia

Pogaca bread is like a small focaccia, a type of bread. But is it Italian? In Georgia, one waiter said pogaca bread was Turkish, and another said it was Ukrainian. It’s a bread popular in the Balkans, Turkey, and Caucasus. My pogaca bread was served with a Meditteranean breakfast of olives, cheese, cold meat, rocket, tomatoes, cucumber, and walnuts.

Pogaca is pronounced pogacha. Pogaca bread is small and round, and can be flat or slightly risen. It can be plain or filled with cheese, potatoes, or minced meat. Regionally pogaca is slightly different, but in Georgia it was flat (one centimetre high), round, the size of a doughnut, unleavened, and glazed on top.

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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