Khachapuri (Georgian Curdled Cheese Bread) and Roman Frescoes – Global Adventures in Food and Archaeology

The New York Times recently came out with an article on a mural (actually, would have been a fresco) from Pompeii showing a proto-pizza. If our identification of the imagery is correct, then people were eating “pizza” some two thousand years ago. Well, sort of pizza. It would have been missing mozzarella cheese (a precursor of which was used by Romans in the first century CE), and tomato (not introduced to Italy until after contact with the New World, where tomatoes were domesticated). This round flat focaccia featured on the Pompeii mural is topped with various fruits (identified as pomegranate and maybe a date), spices, and possibly a type of pesto as indicated by yellow and ochre dots, and possibly condiments.

We can debate whether pizza is pizza without tomatoes and cheese, but what caught my interest was diving into the history of pizza and finding a connection to Khachapuri.

The History of Khachapuri

Khachapuri (Khacha-cheese curds, puri-bread), is a traditional Georgian boat-shaped dish filled with cheese and topped with an egg yolk. There are numerous different variations, specific to cultural regions. Khachapuri plays an unusual role in comparing the cost of khachapuri across different cities in Georgia as a measure of inflation. This quirky approach, known as the “Khachapuri index,” was created by the International School of Economics at Tbilisi State University. Notably, khachapuri holds a special place in Georgia’s heart as its national dish and has even earned a spot on the list of Georgia’s intangible cultural heritage.

The first written record of the dish dates to 1725; however the origins of likely much older. Just how old is up for debate. According to Darra Goldstein who wrote The Georgian Feast about the dish, khachapuri probably dates back to the 12th century when Georgia experienced a renaissance period. On the other hand, it may be of greater antiquity. Dali Tsatava, a former professor at the Georgian Culinary Academy suggests Khachapuri is a “cousin of pizza“, coming to Georgia via Roman soldiers as they traveled the lands around the Black Sea, circa 89 BCE. Or perhaps, even earlier; Greek writers in the fifth century BCE mention a khachapuri-like dish being made in the Colchis territory (an ancient region at the eastern end of the Black Sea south of the Caucasus, in the western part of modern Georgia).

Reading Art

I have talked about the archaeology of contact and conflict before. So, I thought I would focus on art. The frescoes at Pompeii can be described as a piece of art. But this supposition raises the question of how we identify something as “art” in the archaeological record. The dictionary defines art as “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.”

The key is “appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.” Without a historical record explicitly stating ‘we painted this for appreciation,’ it’s challenging to attain that level of understanding through the archaeological record. Instead, archaeologists often focus on descriptions of the art in question (like identifying what is in the image), and questions that are easier to answer (such as what the paints were made of, where it was located, who painted it, did it have foreign influences, etc).

When we delve into reconstructing why people created something, like a fresco, and how it was meant to be read, we have to be careful not to jump to conclusions and make bad assumptions (I review this in my master’s thesis on the quatrefoil symbol in Maya art-see my thesis here). This might seem limiting, but we can still learn a lot through the study of imagery (see this).

The atrium wall of a baker’s house where the fresco was discovered

Keeping this in mind, let’s return to the Pompeii pizza fresco. Just looking at it we can parse out what foods were present. This alone tells us about foodways in ancient Rome such as cooking methods (baking bread), access to food (this was a middle-class home), and trade and exchange (the pomegranate is from Asia). We can learn about the paints (they used a bright red made from cinnabar) and who the painters were. And the list could go on.

As for khachapuri, it appears food similar to the now world-famous Georgian dish date back thousands of years. And, although the dish’s origins may be elusive, it’s evident that this culinary creation not only plays a vital role in shaping Georgian identity but also symbolizes the rich diversity of Georgian culture.