Albania: Blood feuds, and bloody good food.
The past is a foreign country. I spent my past taking the family to each country in Europe. In 2019 we finally made it to Albania along with some fellow Brummies who run the Kitchen Garden café. We caught the boat together from Greece and arrived to find pungent air, young hopeful beggars and a café selling fresh donuts, bread, white cheese and honey for breakfast.
Week two of our locked-down round the world journey found us pretending to be back there from the comfort of Birmingham. The air was still pungent, but there were far less beaches… Still, in Albania the only music we experienced was tinny Europop so asking Alexa to play pre-war Albanian folk music gave us the chance to experience a side of Albania we hadn’t come across whilst there.
Enver Hoxha’s totalitarian rule left an unusual and beautiful country filled with flying saucer-shaped bomb shelters, Roman ruins and knackered infrastructure. But none of this appeared in Broken April a novel by Ismael Kadare. Instead it takes you through the lives of people affected by the Kanun or Blood Code, a typically Albanian form of justice where blood must be avenged by blood. It read like an Albanian On Chesil Beach as the protagonists are experiencing a somewhat fraught honeymoon.
Even the film we chose harked back to those days. Wild Flowers tells the story of Lule Bib Luka one of the last Burrneshas — sworn virgins who reject a conventional women’s life to take a male role. Her life is hard, but it’s impossible to imagine that she will be happier leaving behind the sheep who treat her as their mum, and retiring in front of the TV.
One of the many things we loved about Albania was the wine and raki, so I spent a week searching for anywhere that sells them in Birmingham or the internet. I failed but came back with a Puglian wine which is grown so close to Albania I guess it has to be similar. There also seems to be no Albanian food shop in Birmingham so instead I headed to Damascena Souk where we found a delicious circular vegan pastry dish similar to one I had had in Albania, and the ingredients for Fergese which is a sort of a hot yoghurt and cheese side dish. We complemented it with fresh Albanian bread and a leek bake called tave presh. All considered it was a great trip but I don’t think we’ll be going back in a hurry!
Next week we’ll be in Algeria…
10 October 2020
