Fishless Florida and No Albanian Specialties

As has happened to me before in Florida, I was standing dully in front of the fish section at a typical supermarket noting the lack of anything from Florida, fishwise.  Farmed salmon from Chile, tilapia, Idaho trout....Rita the fish  person then regaled me with the entire Florida fish saga--(there isn't any in supermarkets--but that just goes along with the fact that frequently there isn't any Florida produce there, either--) and suggested I had two options--Florida Gulf shrimp or Cedar Key oysters, and she was out of the latter.

I took the shrimp.  I will do it up with fresh linguini, garlic, a tad of NM red chile, some basil,white wine--you get the idea.

Then I stopped at a fruit/veggie stand run by an Albanian guy. This time I found a few bearably priced items, including, amusingly, very inexpensive Macintosh apples, presumably because they are NOT ICKY SWEET. ( Pardon me.)

He also carries feta from France, Greece, the US and Bulgaria but not Albania. In fact when pressed about Albanian food specialties by your intrepid reporter, after a long pause he said flatly, " We eat like Greek. Exactly like Greek."

( BTW Note to Self--Follow Up---Wikipedia reports there's a huge fan base forAlbanian cuisine ( whatever that may be) in Liverpool, England.)

The only Albanian product he sells is bottled water....I went off into a dreamlike state, recalling once years ago gazing across from southern Italy at unvisitable More Communist Than Thou Albania, shrouded in fog...

How many Albanian Leks does the bottler make on each bottle shipped to Florida? Why are we  Amurricans dumb enough or snobby enough to purchase water from distant parts of the world, Fiji, for example?

I bought some Bulgarian feta in order to reach the $5 mark and use my debit card.

( Thanks to http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/al.html for this image of the robust Albanian flag.)

Comments

[B]

Balkans are a mixed culture that were ruled by the Ottaman Empire for over 500 years; if Albanians eat like Greeks, than the Greeks eat like the Turks! Mother Nature produces for every culture the same fruits based on the regions in which the fruits thrive. Food is a personal preference and is prepared differently not only in every country but differently in every home.

[A]

ppppffffffffffffff

the cuisine is matter of "gusto"
u have to try both foods albanian and greek specialities to taste the diference ! we are talking about balkans mixed culture and history so if you go in the northen greece you may find traditional food like in southern albania ... but they are not the same ...
who said that the feta is greek made ... you can find in albania kinds of feta .. that you cant find in greece in italy or worldwide ... so ... dont walk on the surface someone may feel good buying water from homeland... is somethink that you can feel only if you are a stranger in a strange country ....

regards

A

albanian food isn't famous,but belive me there are many specialities,and much more salutary than american food (if exsist a typical one)