What Was Abysta Made From Before Maize Reached Abkhazia?
Today, it is impossible to imagine an Abkhaz feast without абыста (abysta), a dense porridge more widely known elsewhere as mamalyga. Traditionally, it is served plain and functions as a form of “bread”, complementing the flavours of salted cheese ашә (ashə), spiced beans аҟәыд (aqýd), or meat акәац (akə́ts). Yet maize, from which this dish is prepared today, is a relatively recent arrival in the Caucasus, having been introduced from the Americas.
This raises a natural question: what formed the basis of the Abkhaz diet before maize became widespread? The answer lies in historical accounts and ethnographic observations.
The Millet Era: The Foundation of the Diet
According to early fifteenth-century sources, the local population, the Abkhazians, lived without the cereal grains familiar to us today:
“The inhabitants consume neither bread nor wheat, as they simply do not have them; they boil crushed millet in clay vessels without salt, and this is what they eat instead of bread.”
For a long period, the principal grain was ахәыӡ (akhydz), known as chumiza, sometimes referred to as black rice or foxtail millet. From it, the Abkhazians prepared a thick porridge that served as the staple of daily nutrition. Among neighbouring Mingrelians, this dish was known as gomi.
The widespread and almost universal character of this type of porridge was noted in 1833 by the Swiss explorer and researcher Frédéric Dubois de Montpéreux, who wrote:
“The tribes of Colchis subsist on a thick porridge called ‘gomi’, made from Italian millet. The Circassians have replaced this millet with common millet; all Cossack and Polish tribes eat a similar porridge, but prepared from buckwheat groats; Lithuanians and Latvians cook a thinner gruel from barley; the southern Slavs as far as Illyria prepare this gomi or porridge from maize flour. Everywhere it is the principal national dish.”
This testimony clearly shows that long before maize became dominant, thick cereal porridge formed the nutritional backbone of many Eurasian societies, including Abkhazia.
Chestnut “Abysta” of the Highlanders
In mountainous regions, where cereal cultivation was difficult or impossible, the Abkhazians demonstrated remarkable adaptability, relying on forest resources. The prominent Russian officer and military intelligence officer Fyodor Tornau, describing the everyday life of Abkhaz highlanders in the Krasnaya Polyana region in the nineteenth century, recorded the following practice:
“The inhabitants dry chestnuts for the winter and, after boiling them in water, eat them with butter or with milk.”
For western Abkhaz communities, especially in mountainous areas, chestnuts thus served as a full substitute for grain. A thick chestnut mass, enriched with butter or milk, fulfilled the same functional and nutritional role as абыста (abysta), providing a filling and energy-rich staple.
The Arrival of Maize
The transition to maize, also known as maize or corn, occurred gradually and became firmly established only in the second half of the nineteenth century. The historian Nikolai Dubrovín emphasised the exceptional productivity of this new crop, which increasingly displaced traditional millet:
“Indeed, the harvest yield is extraordinarily high, reaching up to 1,600 grains for gomi and up to 1,200 for maize, and sometimes even more. Of all cereal crops, the Abkhazian sows mainly gomi and maize, and only rarely barley, wheat and beans.”
Despite the change in raw ingredients, the method of preparation and the culture of consumption remained remarkably stable. The thick, unsalted porridge continued to function as the foundation of the Abkhaz meal, maintaining a clear continuity of tradition from the ancient ахәыӡ (akhydz)-based dish to modern maize абыста (abysta).
Sources
- Tardy, Lajos. The Caucasian Peoples and Their Neighbours in 1404. Budapest, 1978.
- Tornau, Fyodor. Russkiy Vestnik, Moscow, Vol. 54, 1864.
- Dubois de Montpéreux, Frédéric. Travels Around the Caucasus: Among the Circassians and Abkhazians, in Colchis, Georgia, Armenia and Crimea. Nalchik, 2022.
- Dubrovín, N. F. History of the War and Russian Rule in the Caucasus. St Petersburg, Vol. I, 1871.
Originally published on the Damhurts Telegram channel and translated for AbkhazWorld.