Georgian Feast Table Overflowing with Food

Long wooden tables run the length of a crowded hall, packed edge to edge with dumplings, flatbreads, roasted meats and glasses of dark red wine. Guests in patterned dresses and dark tunics sit shoulder to shoulder passing plates, while a queue of newcomers waits near a man taking names at a desk stacked with wrapped gifts. Off to one side, couples in traditional dress dance across a red carpet as a pianist and children with clarinets play nearby. In the kitchen corner, cooks stir a huge simmering pot and pull flatbread from a stone oven. Men roll out patterned rugs and carry a heavy wine barrel across the floor, and a small dog chews a cloth nearby. Cats dart between chair legs beneath the tables, and a worker carries a basket heaped with grapes past a wine-stained rug. Every table and rug holds its own cluster of guests, easy to tell apart.