Corn

Some things in life seem so simple.   (Or, Tales in Cultural Anthropology)

I periodically get Servet and we go all over town, pazar to pazar, looking for something I desperately need, like basil or sage or pickling cucumbers.  I have discovered that the plentiful Albanian variety of basil is a small-leafed variety, which tastes okay, but I don't like it as well as the Italian version.  I've ordered some sweet basil seeds to solve that problem.

Sage has proved elusive also, and seeds are coming to solve that problem.

Cindy mentions every time we see a fig tree how much she likes figs.  I saw some figs at one of the pazars, and they were a little "old" shall we say, and I was picking through them to see if I could find a handful, but Servet let me know that these were too far gone and I wouldn't be buying any of those figs.

Seeing little grills at street corners with people roasting ears of corn, I thought it high time I went to the pazar and bought some corn on the cob.

 After going to five or six pazars and seeing no corn, and none in the grocery stores, I decided I needed some help from the locals.
I thought surely there would be a source of fresh corn.  After all, I've seen it growing all over the

country.   

So after asking Rosa, my language teacher, the word for corn in Albanian (misra, which turns out to be uncomfortably like misery), I enlisted Servet in the search for fresh corn.

Through his daughter, Vilma, who speaks very good English and graduated from the American High School here where Taylor went in the spring, he quizzed me at length about actually what it was I wanted.  I couldn't tell him "like they have at the pazar" because they didn't have any.  I told him "to eat and to freeze."  He's seen me can tomatoes, so he understands the food preservation idea.  There does not appear to be a size of measure comparable to our bushel, so I said I wanted 100 ears.

He was still pretty puzzled, but after he and Vilma talked between themselves for a good while, he called his friend Ibrihimi, who lives in Varosh.  Varosh is a small village, to build it up a bit, on the old road between here and Durres.  Servet said Ibrihimi had just what I wanted, but we'd have to go in our four-wheel drive Mercedes because our old Ford Taurus wouldn't make it up the hill.  

So at nine o'clock sharp on the morning of August 20th we left for Varosh to buy 100 ears of corn.  Arriving in what I assumed to be Varosh, Servet slowed down to a crawl, on the highway, of course, and after looking around then pulled halfway off the road and attempted to phone Ibrihimi, but got no answer.  So we made a U-turn and went back and started down a little lane, which soon abruptly turned and started a steep ascent up the mountain.  It was steep and twisting, but in short order we arrived at Ibrihimi's house and I met his wife and one son.  After a little conversation, Servet, the son, and I got back in the car and went back down the mountain, where we found Ibrihimi waiting on the other side of the road.  He and Servet made the universal gestures for "where in the hell were you?" and so forth, and after exchanging the kiss-on-both-cheeks Albanian greeting for old friends, he got in the car and we proceeded at a crawl down the highway for about 200 yards before pulling off into a very narrow one-lane gravel lane, where after about 100 yards we saw two cars stopped, facing each other, a little down the lane.  The occupants were out of their vehicles talking, visiting, and more of concern to me, paying no attention at all to us.  Ibrihimi got out of the car and walked down to where they were and joined in the conversation.  After a few minutes Servet started laughing and said something under his breath about Albanians, and drove on down and went up and they all continued talking and having a good time.  I have no idea how a plan was decided on, but soon Servet got in the car and backed up past a house, the second car backed up and into the driveway, and the first car came down the road and through the corn field stubble around us and left.  We followed Ibrihimi to a field, where Servet stopped the car and we got out.

I knew something was not quite right.  Not only were the corn stalks all stiffly brown, but some had started to be cut and tied into bundles.  The ear I was shown was brown and very hard.  I was just tapping on the kernels to see if one would fall out, wondering exactly what to say.  

"Good?"  Servet asked, and I looked up and saw them waiting with eager anticipation.  "Well," I said, and managed to convey that I really wanted something more soft, with water content, and green husks.  Servet and Ibrihimi just looked at each other, not knowing what to say or do.  Ibrihimi's son said something and gestured toward another field, and we all walked over to it.  The stalks were still green, and we pulled and inspected an ear.  There weren't 100, but we put 50 or so in the car, and headed off for coffee at a bar/ristorant on the highway.

Being the guest, I was asked to order first, and I asked for a cappecino, which I have found to be the best alternative option for me.  The waiter I think said he didn't know how to make it, or they didn't have it, I'm not sure.  But a long discussion ensued between he and Servet, and I understood enough of it to realize Servet was telling him what was in it and how to make it.  Eventually he just got up and they went into the ristorant, returning finally with my cappecino, which tasted great, and was -- hot chocolate!  It may be that there was a little coffee in it, but I couldn't taste it.  I may have gotten it because they figured if I couldn't handle espresso I didn't need coffee at all -- after all, it was ten o'clock in the morning, and Ibrihimi was already drinking raki with his espresso.   

We returned to Tirana.  I suspect Ibrihimi will relish telling his version of my visit.  He's probably still trying to figure out what I wanted, and why I wanted what I got.  He and his family were very nice, though, and Albanians I have met have been unfailingly friendly and hospitable, but I wouldn't expect that to stand in the way of a humorous tale.  

I shucked some of the corn and boiled it for supper.  It never got done.  I think it was already too dry, or maybe not a corn-for-fresh-eating variety.

After interrogating Servet on the way back to town I discovered corn is not a food Albanians seem to eat fresh.  The corn Ibrihimi had was dried and they grind it for cornmeal.  They do eat cornbread, and polenta is readily available in grocery stores.

I imagined that was the end of my Ibrihimi acquaintance, but yesterday Servet told me that we should go out there Saturday to get figs.  So he and his wife and Cindy and I are off to Varosh Saturday.  

I have corn seeds on the way, two packets of Silver Queen and two of Mirai.  I'm expecting better things next summer.  

I may give them to Ibrihimi for Christmas.