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In Kosovo, my homeland, my grandmother would make a dish called Tespishte for my birthday as a child.
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Happy Mother's Day!
In Kosovo, my homeland, my grandmother would make a dish called Tespishte for my birthday as a child. From that time on, the taste of it was embedded forever in my memory. Not only because of its sweetness, but also because of the moment of celebration that everyone in the family shared and enjoyed. Growing up in the Balkans during the 1970s, eating and dining were strictly private matters as restaurant culture was almost nonexistent and the industrial food products had just started to appear in the market. I have memories of going to pastry shops only during hot summer days to eat ice cream, drink boza (fermented drink made from corn flour) and eat shampite- a meringue pie served in a tall glass and topped with a scoop of ice cream. At home, typical sweets were made with whatever fruit was in the season, locally produced or from the garden.
Special desserts were made during holidays and celebrations like birthdays, engagements, weddings, childbirth, moving into a new house, or after a funeral. Women, especially grandmothers, were responsible for preparing these dishes while also caring for the family. At that time, we didnt use written recipes. They were only transferred orally from mother and mother-in-law to daughter and daughter-in-law.
A few years ago, during the Jewish Holidays, I noticed that various publications were highlighting a traditional Jewish dessert called Tishpishti. I began to research traditional Jewish recipes to see if there were other similar foods to the ones I had grown up eating. I read several Sephardic Cookbooks and found written recipes for Tishpishti as well as Stuffed Grape Leaves, Guvetch, Cheese Borekas, Baklava, and Halvah which I clearly recognized as my grandmothers cooking too. I was so happy to see that these authors had taken their grandmothers recipes and written them down for future generations as a way to preserve their heritage for posterity.
Through our burek, we are hoping to maintain and share one small piece of our heritage and grandmothers recipes with you. We would like to pay tribute to all grandmothers and mothers for their historic contributions to preserving culture for new generations and we wish you a HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!
Click below to read our full blog post on Food and Tradition - Women's Historic Legacy of Cultural Preservation
-Alida Malushi, co-founder of Balkan Bites
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