Traditional Food of Albania

Fertile climate, nearness to the sea and cooperation with the neighboring countries have had a huge impact on diversity and profusion of Albanian cuisine. Variety of dishes was adopted from the Byzantines, Venetians and Arabs. In Albania you can taste spider crab brodetto or risotto just like in neighboring Spain. The Albanians borrowed chevapchichi, razhnichi, many types of moussaka and sure enough pilawa from Yougslav cuisine (Figure).

The basic components of almost all dishes are meat and vegetables. You can taste practically traditional croquettes called «chofte», shish kebab and other familiar dishes here, but each chef adds his own traditions and tastes to them.

Albanian cuisine can be nominally divided into three regions:

1. Cuisine of northern regions of the country.

The main foodstuff here is grinded corn. It is used to bake bread and make various types of sweet and salty national dishes.

Kidney beans, potato, carrot and cabbage are grown and consequently used for making food in the northern regions of the country as well. Onion and garlic are added to almost all dishes. Climate of the north is favorable for growth of cherry, pump, walnut and almond. Plump is the main component of the Albanian national drink Rakia.

Traditional dishes here are meat or vegetable casserole, petula (which resembles Russian bliny), rice boiled in meat or vegetable broth, pasta, chicken and rice, sudjuk (a kind of salami), eggplant and egg or parsley filling, sweets and corn flour cakes.

Culinary art of Shkoder is at the head of the table of all northern regions. Fish dishes are extremely popular here as there are a lot of rivers and lakes in this town. Carp and acne are the most common food ingredients, they are roast in an oven or a baking oven, grilled and used as a soup ingredient.

2. Cuisine of central part of the country.

Plentiful soil and fertile climate of the center of Albania are favorable for growing almost all vegetables and fruit. Variety of animals and poultry is also a characteristic of this region - chickens, ducks, geese and turkeys are raised here. Variety of such fish as flounder, perch, acne, sole, gray mullet lives in the Adriatic sea.

Traditional dishes here are meat baked in yogurt (Tav Elbasani), curd stew, egg cakes, cabbage cakes, spinach cakes, white cheese cakes, nettle cakes, liver and curd and balokume dessert.

3. Cuisine of southern region of the country.

Stock-rearing is popular here, so milk and other dairy are often used as foodstuffs. This part of the country is also well-known for its production of various types of hard and soft cheese. And kefir made in the south is so thick that you to cut it with a knife. Warm marine climate provides ideal conditions for growing citrus cultures and olives. Olive oil is also everywhere here – people use it for frying, they add it to different salads and use it as a skin humidifier. The olives are canned and added in various dishes.

Popular meat dishes are stewed meat and onion (chumlek), veal stew (ferges), lamb meat and yogurt (tave-kosi and tave-elbasani), beef roast in fermented milk sauce (rosto-mi-salche-kosi), sheep pluck stuffed with meat and vegetables (kukurech), beef stew (chomlek), cabbage rolls (sarma), meat stew with vegetables and potato (guvech), roasted whole sheep head and barbeque with vegetables. Meat is traditionally served with pilawa (rice) and miscellaneous greens.

In summer cold soup called «tarator» serves before the second dishes is highly popular. This soup contains water acidified with vinegar or sour milk, lettuce or cucumber, garlic, fennel, walnut, olive oil and spices. Tarator is sometimes served with ice.