The Life-Giving Power of a Georgian Feast
The Life-Giving Power of a Georgian Feast
How the Supra Restores Humanity to Paradise
A long table is set and guests take their seats. The pattern of the tablecloth is hidden by dozens of colorful dishes of traditional foods. Spirits rise with the commingled scent of the food, in anticipation of what is to come. The gathered guests may have traveled from far away, or they may be family and neighbors. This table may be high in the Caucasus Mountains of Georgia, or it may be in the hills of Pennsylvania. Wherever the table is, and whomever is gathered around it, all turn their attention to the head when they hear the *ding* of a clinking wine glass. The toastmaster proposes the first of many toasts: The Supra is beginning, and the guests will enjoy much more than just good food and drink.
The Loneliness Epidemic
In our digitized era, gathering at a table for feasting and fellowship is regrettably uncommon. We may even be more likely to see the above scene unfold on a screen, or read about it in a fairytale, than gather at a table, in the flesh.
We live in an age of great loneliness. The number of Americans that report having no friends has increased fivefold since 1990.1 Since the dawn of the Enlightenment, we have begged for independence from kingdoms and obligation, and are closer than ever to achieving what we asked for. But we’re coming to realize that the triumph of the individual is also the trap of isolation.
The problem is not that we lack ways to connect. Meta, one of the world’s largest tech conglomerates, has as its mission statement, “Giving people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.”2 Secular culture today offers many forms of bringing people together, from dating apps, to sports teams to political parties.
And yet, these forms fail to offer meaningful and enduring connection, friendship, and community. What is to be done?
Culture: A Double-Edged Sword
This loneliness epidemic we are experiencing is but a symptom of a larger cultural crisis. In his short story The Dream of a Ridiculous Man3, Fyodor Dostoevsky describes what happens when the world falls from an Edenic state. The story recounts the spiritual reality of human history, elaborating on the early Genesis narrative. As sin spreads and common language is forgotten, men fabricate laws and technologies to ameliorate the effects of sin and fragmentation. On the one hand, people construct temples to remind themselves of their pride and disharmony, and on the other, they invent the guillotine to deal out justice. All kinds of cultural forms appear in order to desperately hold society together.
When considering a cultural phenomenon, we need to discern whether it mitigates the effects of the Fall and unites people under the Cross, or whether it binds people to fallen identities that perpetuate sin and fragmentation. A healthy cultural practice will help to heal the three relationships damaged by the Fall: man’s relationship with God, his fellow man, and the created order.4
The rest of this essay will examine the ways in which the Georgian Supra dinner tradition meets these criteria of a truly healthy cultural practice, by helping us unite in a godly manner. Perhaps this analysis can be used as a template for examining and integrating other cultural forms that may heal and vivify the New World.
Though an ancient tradition, the Supra is still an integral part of Georgian culture today, and is even finding a foothold here in the West. But what is it, exactly?
The Supra is a feast and a celebration that takes place around a table, where a toastmaster, called a tamada, leads the table through various themes introduced through poetic toasts. Traditionally, the table is covered with food that was prepared from the fruits and animals of the earth nearby, and glasses remain filled with homemade wine. Georgian scholars claim the Supra emerged from the ancient Agape feast, the early church tradition commemorating the Last Supper.5 The Supra did not supplant the fundamental Christian ritual of divine liturgy, but should rather be understood as an overflow of sacred liturgical life into the world. For those gathered, the Supra is a way of passing on stories and traditions that connect them to one another, reminding them of the things that are most important.
Restoring the Relationship with Creation
When man falls from Paradise, a rift forms between mankind and creation. In The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, Dostoevsky tells us, “They began torturing animals, and the animals withdrew from them into the forests and became hostile to them.”6 After the Fall, man’s relationship with nature teeters out of balance. He tends to worship created things, abuse them, discard them, or hoard them.
The work put into cultivating the food and wine is the first indication that the Supra reconciles man’s relationship with nature. Traditionally, the food and wine at a Supra are not just purchased at a grocery store, but are raised by the hosts in pastures and tended in gardens. Traditional wine fermentation in Georgia involves cultivating grapes and burying them in the ground in handmade ceramic vessels. The time and effort put into the earth before the Supra even begins is a beautiful display of laboring with God’s creation to transform it into something that can be used to glorify Him.
Given the laborious nature of farming and cooking prior to a Supra, it is especially noteworthy how generous the host is with these fruits of the earth. The precedent of generosity at the Supra heals the “mine and thine” mentality of the fallen world, which desacralizes created things. At the table, all things are shared, and the host places more food and wine on the table than the guests could possibly consume. In the Knight in Panther’s Skin, the national epic poem of Georgia, we read, “It is very wholesome to eat and drink, but what profit [is] it to hoard? What thou givest away is thine; what thou keepest is lost.”7 Thus, man’s relationship with creation is reconciled when he freely gives his possessions, which he knows to have been given to him by God.
The way that the Supra integrates wine is perhaps the best illustration of striking a balance with created things. Whereas wine in a puritanical culture is often either abused or eschewed, the Supra teaches how to properly integrate the lower things of the created order. St. John Chrysostom says, “Do not find fault with wine, but with drunkenness… Wine was given, that we might be cheerful, not that we might behave unseemly. That we might laugh, not that we might be a laughingstock.”8 Wine, this gift from God, is meant to facilitate fellowship at the table rather than drunkenness. It is traditionally said that the tamada must drink the most of anyone while maintaining a state of sobriety and vigilance.
The Supra entails toasts of thanks to the hands that prepared the table and all the food laid out on it. There are toasts to the earth which gave life to the plants and animals that became food, and of course, to God who created all things. In a word, the Supra reminds man of his place as gardener, responsible for caring for creation, and participating with God to bring order to it.
Restoring the Relationship with Neighbor
The second relationship that the Supra restores is that between people. With darkened hearts, the people in Dostoevsky’s story no longer trust one another. “Sensuality was soon begotten, sensuality begot jealousy, jealousy–cruelty… Oh, I don’t know, I don’t remember; but soon, very soon the first blood was shed. They marveled and were horrified, and began to be split up and divided.”9 In the fallen world, we find an abundance of fallen social cultural forms that attempt to restore societal unity, from laws and punishments to humanistic calls to brotherhood. These forms may work for a time, but if they fail to incorporate the Cross and Resurrection, they will ultimately end in a crumbling Tower of Babel.
In Georgian culture, one of the most highly esteemed virtues is self-emptying hospitality. Hosts consider their guests to be gifts from God, and truly treat them as such. The host’s sumptuous generosity allows people to encounter one another as they truly are, divine images. The Supra’s built-in etiquette, as well as the tamada’s attentiveness, opens a space for people to bond, for relationships to reconcile, and for grudges to be laid aside.
The rules of the Supra cohere the event. For example, in order for a guest to give a toast, he or she cannot simply stand and begin speaking, but must first receive the tamada’s approval, and then give a toast that relates to the theme at hand. Thus, when members around the table offer toasts, the table is protected from tamada tyranny, while the etiquette keeps the gathering from descending into free-for-all toasting chaos.
One of the tamada’s main tasks is to discern what is needed to bring the table to profound unity. Though the tamada is the main orator, his toasts are rarely scripted. He listens and observes the table’s relationship dynamics and overall mood and personality, and he responds accordingly. For example, if the people gathered are family, friends or co-workers who rarely see each other, though they may stay in touch online or from a distance, the tamada may emphasize themes like fellowship and the joy of embodied connection. If the gathering is a table full of strangers, the tamada will facilitate new friendships by toasting to themes like family and music, themes that all people can relate to, and thus toast to. By binding the table to higher, universal themes – logoi that participate in the Logos – the tamada fans the sparks of beauty present in the people gathered, and by adding to the themes with their own toasts, participants discover how these logoi are present in different forms in one another’s lives.
The Supra unites people gathered at the table, and this union extends beyond, into guests’ whole communities. There is frequently a toast to remember those family and friends who could not be present, and there is always a toast to the deceased, the people known and unknown by those gathered, who they wish to remember and make present at the table. Participants will recall names and stories, and the tamada may sing “memory eternal”10, supplicating God, the Eternal One, to remember those who have departed this life. During this toast to the departed, participants often pour wine onto a piece of bread, an obvious parallel to the eucharistic meal. Many Georgian tamadas relate the wine at the table to the blood we share, and to Christ’s blood at the Last Supper.11 In this way, the Supra restores unity among people, both present and absent, living and dead, by bringing all under God’s eternal love.
Restoring the Relationship with God
The ultimate and most tragic effect of the Fall is the damaged relationship between God and man. In the Dream of a Ridiculous Man, after sin enters the world through a lie, the people in the story realize they have lost some faculty; however, “They hardly remembered what they had lost, in fact refused to believe that they had ever been happy and innocent.”12 With innocence lost and the noetic faculty darkened, communion with God becomes tenuous, and idolatry runs wild.
The Supra, though on a different level than, say, hesychastic prayer or divine services, aims to restore true noetic sight by gathering the attention of each participant and directing it to higher spiritual realities.
The first hint of this process can be seen in the shape of the Supra itself. A typical Supra takes place at a long, rectangular table. Participants sit around the table, while at the head sits the tamada, traditionally a man. The tamada’s role is priestly, and he is selected based on his wisdom, diplomacy, and ability to speak poetically on profound matters.13 With each toast, the tamada lifts people’s attention up to beautiful ideas. The participants aim their attention towards the tamada, who reveals heavenly things with the use of words. The best tamada does not take honor and attention for himself, but points people to higher things.
The first toast at a Supra is traditionally a toast of gratitude to God. In other words, the first thing celebrated and invited to dwell at the table is the One who created the table and allowed it to be. This toast is a prayer to restore unity between heaven and earth. Each following toast is a brick laid upon the foundation of the previous toast, making God the foundation stone of the event. Without first calling upon the true Light14, how can any other toasting theme be seen clearly?
As the Supra goes on, the tamada continues to mediate between heaven and earth, bringing the table along on a journey from one pole of existence to another. Toasting themes may include men, women, life, death, joy, suffering, and so on. Each theme is poetically celebrated, and spoken of in such a way as to portray its most noble, redemptive characteristics. All participants are invited to add their own toasts to each theme at hand. A toast may range from a few words from the heart to a several-minute story that really adds flesh to the theme. On the toast to women, for example, the tamada may speak about the Mother of God’s maternal love for all, and her example of hosting the Creator in her womb. In response, a participant may offer a toast to the host of the Supra, who embodies this feminine, hospitable love. If a participant’s view of women has been damaged for one reason or another, the Supra can function to restore balance in the participant’s soul.
The ultimate goal of the Supra is to lead the community on a royal path to a place of peace and stillness, where true apprehension can take place. All the hard work of preparing the food, inviting the guests and setting the table culminates in a bountiful feast, a place of rest, where all may recognize God as the giver of all.
The Eternal Feast
The last toast at a Supra, often to the angels and saints, is the culmination of the upward spiral experience which finally gives us a glimpse of the true meaning of the heavenly feast which we all yearn to partake in. By the time this toast takes place, the guests have been filled with more than the fattened calf and wine. They have been illuminated by the soulful experience and thus reminded of their truest selves. Your very own words do more than transact, gossip, and fill space – they transform space and resonate with the hearts of co-strugglers. What starts as an earthly dinner is revealed to be a heavenly banquet.
The Supra gives us an astonishing example of a cultural form that is meaningful, healing, and enduring. Despite the vast amount of social cultural forms available to us, the West is experiencing a historically unprecedented loneliness epidemic. The bereft digital communication, shallow TV shows, cringy company icebreakers – these forms are impotent shadows of the profound connection we truly yearn for.
If, indeed, culture is downstream from cult15, in other words, if that which we collectively attend to shapes the world we inhabit, then right worship should produce right culture. By looking to peoples who have been immersed in divine liturgy for generations, we discover many cultural forms that extend the liturgical function of healing the three broken relationships of our fallen world. The first hospitals and orphanages appeared in Byzantium, bearing witness to the commandment to serve the sick and suffering16. The holy kiss became a common greeting in the ancient world during the spread of Christianity, as a way of venerating the image of God in every person. Positive cultural forms sanctify the world, unite people while respecting their freedom, and establish an image of the heavenly Jerusalem we are meant to dwell in. We credit the Georgians for giving us the remarkable tradition of the Supra.
Sin entered into the world through a lie, resulting in the tragic alienation of man from God, his neighbor and all of creation. The restoration of humanity’s rightful place in paradise may happen through a word of truth: a prayer, a sacred hymn, and even, I tell you, a toast.
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Now, where to start? How can we take a tradition from a faraway place and call it our own? If you’re interested in learning more, or if you want to host your own Supra, reach out to me. I’m blessed to be a part of a community that’s cautiously but boldly making this beautiful tradition accessible to us Americans. We’ve opened a Georgian restaurant called Keipi in South Carolina that hosts multiple Supras every week. And we’re now fundraising to launch an exciting new venture called Supra Dinner Society, a non-profit that allows us to bring the Supra to you, wherever you are. You can reach me at daniel@supradinner.com. Let’s have dinner together. It might just bring healing to our world.
Daniel A. Cox. “Men’s Social Circles Are Shrinking,” on The Survey Center on American Life, April 7, 2022. www.americansurveycenter.org/why-mens-social-circles-are-shrinking/. The study reports an increase from 3% to 15% for men and 2% to 10% for women.
“Meta - FAQs,” on Meta Investor Relations, 2022. investor.fb.com/resources/default.aspx.
Fyodor Dostoevsky; trans By Constance Garnett in 1916, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man. (Original work published 1877).
St. Irenaeus of Lyons. The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching (Veritatis Splendor Publications, LLC, 2019), 43–44. The rupturing of the three relationships can be found in Genesis, but St. Irenaeus gives a good summary in this work.
Giorgi Gotsiridze & Nino Gambashidze. “Liturgic Nature of the Georgian Traditional Feasts, Exultations and Festive Hymns,” in The Third International Symposium on Traditional Polyphony (Tbilisi: Tbilisi State Conservatoire, 2006), 495–504.
See Dostoevsky, 8.
Shota Rustaveli; trans. By Marjory Wardrop in 1912. The Knight in the Panther’s Skin (Orlando, 2023), verse 50.
St. John Chrysostom, “Homily 57,” in Homilies on the Gospel of St. Matthew, vol. ii (Oxford, 1844), 140.
See Dostoevsky, 8.
A memorial hymn sung during Orthodox Christian funerals and during certain memorial services
See Gotsiridze & Gambashidze, 497.
See Dostoevsky, 8.
See Gotsiridze & Gambashidze, 499.
Jn 1:9
Russell A. Kirk. “Civilization Without Religion?” Lecture presented at The Heritage Foundation, Washington, D.C., 1992.
Timothy Miller. The Birth of the Hospital in the Byzantine Empire (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997)