Marinated Grilled Meat

The most common grill in Georgia is mtsvadi, skewers of plain, freshly slaughtered lamb, beef, or pork. If the meat is less tender, however, it can be marinated overnight before grilling, in which case it is known as basturma. As a culinary term, basturma is related to basderma and pastirma, the Armenian and Turkish words for spiced dried beef (our word for spiced cooked beef, pastrami, is also related). But Georgians use basturma to refer exclusively to grilled meat.