Carp are Crap: Ken Gibbs

Prepared from a computer draft started in December, 1999, in Tirana, Albania. The advantage is that computer files don’t gather dust and take up less space; but does this make them any more readable ? Judge for yourself.

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If I were good at crossword puzzles I’d have far less trouble with Albanian wine lists and menus than I do.

For instance, there’s nothing like a “Gordon Blue” after a long, hard day looking at garbage and smelling sewage. “Gordon Blue” ? Can it be a fearsome cocktail based on gin with some coloured mixer; or is it some variation on the Gordon Highlanders ?

Actually, no.

It is, in fact, the Albanian equivalent of the French for “Cordon Bleu”, and delicious it is too. The meat is good and tasty, and the preparation and presentation are excellent. But where I eat most frequently, there are some real mysteries; like “Qebap with paper” – no, it is not pepper, but tin foil – or “Liver with orange smell” which sounds ominous. “Pissa Napolitana” has dubious overtones while “Shato Berat” presumably refers to the Chateau in that town. “Birra Picolo” generally is thought to refer to a smaller glass of beer rather than one to leave one pickled.

The food in Albania draws on some of the best in the region so that one seems always to be able to find something to suit even the most discriminating of palates. It helps if one is an admirer of Italian and Greek cuisine since these can be found almost everywhere and I have yet to find a better Pizza Napolitana anywhere.

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There is a huge lake beside the city of Shkodra named Lake Scutari. It adds much to the beauty of the environment particularly when viewed from the castle overlooking Shkodra. Since the lake straddles the border between Albania and Montenegro, it is said that there is a lively traffic in contraband across it.

Eating beside the lake is always a memorable event. Dashi – the UNICEF driver assigned to me for this trip - decided that we should sample the delights of food from a restaurant beside the river that feeds the lake. Carp was on the menu, and not being too expensive, it was selected. To be recommended, especially with the local draught beer. The only jarring note was that car disposal here is into the river just beside where we were eating our fish.

When I told Dashi that I had eaten carp in other parts of the world, he corrected me saying that this is not carp, it’s crap. Not being entirely sure whether this was a commentary on the catering at this establishment or not, I made a second pass at my earlier comment. Again, I was corrected. The aroma of cooking lead me to believe that this was still a misunderstanding on my part, so I tried a different tack. ‘Um, are there any other types of fish in the lake ?’ I wondered. ‘Of course’, said Dashi, ‘but the only good eating fish is the crap.’ So it appears that Bill Gates’s influence has already arrived in Shkodra with typical spell-check correction. Ah, well !

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I am troubled – probably my Calvinist upbringing – at the breakfast menu. In most of the hotels it is fine and generally determined by the expatriates staying. Bread, butter, jam (sour plum), and coffee strong enough to stain your teeth. Not so in the cafés outside, where to a man they drink raki or grappa or cognac or some noxious brew that looks like old engine oil and smells even worse. I wouldn’t dare light a match anywhere near any of them – you can see the alcoholic haze above the glasses even !

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Last night, had I had company with me, it would have been embarrassed. Badly embarrassed.

There I was, sitting quietly in the restaurant - I had come early because I was tired from the HASH and the previous night's farewell party - and had ordered a beer and some food. The beer came. The food came. And the only other client in the restaurant decided that he would phone all the world on his mobile - that vile instrument which I am beginning to hate as much as my wife hates computers.

I had actually brought some paper and was starting to write a short piece on mobile phones and my concentration was disrupted by his voice.

He was an Albanian but I suppose he wanted to show off that he could speak English as well. I cannot imagine to whom he was speaking but if I had been that person, I would have put the phone down immediately. For me, I could not credit what I was hearing because the language was so foul that I choked on my beer. He finished the conversation while I digested what I had heard.

A few people started filtering in for something to eat or drink and he kept using the phone, employing a voice that could be heard throughout the restaurant. He spoke in Albanian. Eventually he phoned another person to whom he felt it important he should speak in English. He launched into the obscene language which he had used earlier and something cracked.

I don't know what it was - could it have been that I was paying good money to eat here and didn't need to pay to hear this foul language ? Or was it that that was at least one woman in the place - who may not even have been able to understand the English ? Whatever it was, the something that cracked, did it with a splintering noise enough for all to notice.

I stood up, grabbed my beer, and announced in a voice that could equally as well be heard throughout the restaurant that I didn't come here to hear this filth - and that he needed his mouth washed out with soap. And that if I was to stay, I was to have my food brought outside. Four of the five waiters at this restaurant speak passable English, and at least two were close by. They looked startled. Perhaps I would have been, had I been in their place.

I stormed out and sat down at a table outside where the temperature was at least 10° cooler, at a table without a tablecloth. They hadn't planned on serving angry customers outside in the dark and cold, it seems. They were obviously quite discomforted by my display, but I think it had the desired effect because I saw, through a window, one of the waiters walk over to his table and remonstrate with him. He left shortly afterwards.

Now they don't suspect that I am a little crazy, they know it. And today, I have a cold. Serves me right, I guess.

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Ken Gibbs can be contacted via kengibbs1941@gmail.com

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