Customer Reviews

Best of Albanian Cooking: Favorite Family Recipes

5 star:		(0)
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3 star:		(4)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

I have been looking for an Albanian cookbook for several years now, and this appears to be the only one available. Thus I can hardly credit the first review that criticizes it and refers to "abundant" resources that the authors have overlooked.

Since Albania was shut out from the rest of the world for many years by one of the most repressive communist regimes in the world, it is perhaps not totally surprising that there aren't many English language resources on Albanian culture. The few recipes I've found on the web seem to mainly include close cousins of Middle Eastern staples such as Imam Bayaldi, khufta or tarator sauce.

Since this is the only current source of Albanian recipes and there aren't many Albanians in the US, this book will have to do until something better comes along. From the excerpts on this site, the book appears to have some interesting recipes, but little discussion of Albanian cuisine in general. The fragmented nature of Albanian history is probably reflected in their cooking, as the region has been repeatedly invaded and occupied by its neighbors over the millenia. Whether there is anything left of a historical, indigenous Albanian cuisine may be known by someone, but as far as I can determine, details are not available in any English publication.

Overall, I enjoyed this recipe book. However, many of the recipes do not appear to be well edited. On numberous occasions akward (non-native speaker?) language is employed, thereby making many of the recipes extremely confusing. Nonetheless, it was fun to experiment with many of the recipes.

There are a number of problems with this book:

1) None of the two authors aparently, has any knowledge of the culinary art, and that is clearly reflected everywhere in this book. It is obvious that they haven't even researched the abandant resources of Albanian cooking.

2) The translation is far from professional, making it difficult to read.

3) The book is hard to follow because the instructions are vague, e.g. 1 package of x means nothing as a package can have various sizes.

4) Having visited Albania numerous times, and having an appeciation for their delicious cooking, I find this book nowhere near an Albanian cook book; e.g. the apperitives list is incorrect, with nothing in the list being a real Albanian apperitive. Erroneous content consists throughout the text, mainly as a result of authors' lack of culinary knowledge (turkey stuffed with chestnuts - never heard in Albania!!!).

Being an Albanian I was really excited when I came accross this book, not because I needed the recipes, but because I was happy to see that people would get exposed to a cuisine that is misunderstood or not known at all. I agree with most of the reviewers that it is not well written. The instructions are vague, and I understand why. To this day when I call my mother for a recipe she never has the exact amounts of ingredients she puts in her dishes, or the exact cooking times. Regardless, I think the selection is limited, not representative of the best dishes, and overall lacking in quality. It is hard to try to create recipes of Albanian food as most of them are known by mothers who have learned by watching their own mothers, smelling the food, seeing it and the colors it acquires when it is ready. Cooking in Albanian homes is an experience and activity that brings people together, so it is hard to exactly pin down the recipes. For a recipe to work it should affect all of the senses; smell, taste, sight, and memory.
For the adventurous cook it will be a fun book to add to a collection, however, keep in mind that most probably the recipes will not work well unless you have seen and helped prepare the food several times.

While this is certainly better than some cookbooks, and the sole resource for Albanian cooking, it's really quite lacking.

My main gripe is that there is NO discussion of what makes Albanian cuisine unique. Had this been a cheap cookbook, I would have been a little less disappointed, but for the price, this is ridiculous. Furthermore, it comes hardcover, something it hardly merits.

There are some interesting recipies, but a lot are very, very basic. And if you're not interested in eating brains and entrails, a good number of the recipies will turn you off a bit.

Two and a half stars would have been a lot more appropriate.

This book is OK but it is missing alot of recipes that Albanians serve here in the states. Examples: Culeche,Petla,talumba,mars ( sorry I don't know how to write Albanian )