The food

The food



Albanian cuisine is similar to that of the other Balkan countries, such as Greece or Turkey, and there is a reason for that. According to my copy of 'Mediterranean Cooking' book,


Albanian cuisine is similar to that of the other Balkan countries, such as Greece or Turkey, and there is a reason for that. According to my copy of 'Mediterranean Cooking' book, ". . . much of the substance of present day Greek cuisine goes back to the long centuries of Ottoman dominion. This is evidenced by the large number or Turkish derived names encountered in the Greek menu: dolmathes, stuffed vegetables, from dolma; pilafi, rice, from pilav; keftedes, patties of ground meat, from kofte; tsoureki, sweet bread, from corek; yuvetsi, casserole, from quvec; lukoumades, fried dough puffs, from lokma; bourekakia, bread pies, from borek; and so on. . . ."

Simply put, you see the same words and they describe pretty much the same stuff all across the Balkans. I will write these words again in a table to make the situation clear, and I will add the Albanian counterparts:


Albanian
dollma, (or sarma)
pilaf
qofte
çorek
gjyveç
llokma
byrek