Russian Cooking - Foods of the World Author:Helen and George Papashvily & the Editors of Time-Life Books from the Introduction ... — "In Georgia, the nation where I was born (it is now a republic of the Soviet Union), men learn to cook and to cook well. Some foods, like our mtswadi or grilled meats, were--and for that matter still are--cooked only by men. It is the men who prepare the food for the big parties given when a whole village celebrates ... more »a holiday. In my own village, my father and two of his friends had the special duty and pleasure of preparing wedding feasts and they taught me to cook our traditional Georgian dishes as soon as I could handle an knife. ...« less