My apologies for the length of this video. It is an hour long. You can do what I did, I sped it up to 1.5X speed and slowed it down for the parts I found most interesting.
It is from a Youtube "cooking" channel set in Albania. Albania is the European equivalent of West Virginia. It is very rural and mountainous and very clan-oriented.
Unlike West Virginia, it staggered under a corrupt, incompetent, Communist regime from the late 1940s until 1992.
Like all Youtube channels, you have to take what you see-and-hear with a grain of salt. They imply that this is a remote village untouched by modern life and yet we hear jet airplanes descending for landings. Never-the-less, there are gold nuggets to be mined.
The dog is appealing. Several of the chickens are "game-cocks and hens". They have a still and use poly tubing to pipe cooling water to it and seal leaks with a putty made of whole-wheat flour and water.
It is ironic that Albania is perhaps the most "Muslim" country in Europe with approximately 60% professing to be Muslim....and here is this couple cranking out "grappa" and "slivovitz" like nobody's business.
They fill in some of the dead-spots barbecuing fish (probably mullet according to my expert-in-all-things including matters piscine, Lucas)...a saltwater species. The rack for holding the fish is interesting.
The grape trellis posts are concrete.
They have Kaki persimmons drying in the background.
The grape clusters are HUGE.
The apparatus for heating the still seems very inefficient. Also, they would benefit from a "thumper" as a single-stage still tops out at 30% alcohol due to the relatively close boiling points between water and ethanol.
My guess is that they are in their fifties or early-sixties and they are in great physical shape.
My fascination with less economically developed countries is that older technologies are still used on a regular basis and I am inspired by how people solved universal problems like roasting chestnuts, broiling fish, preserving food and so on.
Their other videos
Most of their other videos have the woman making elaborate meals and desserts under austere conditions. She has an undeniable elegance about her! Brewing tea with rose hips, crystal glasses, plum-cakes and massive pies.
I liked this video because the gentleman was more involved and, frankly, I like grapes and I like wine.
Just FYI a single stage still can go to almost 70% .
ReplyDeleteNot that i would have anything to do with unlicensed water separators.
Just sayin'
Joe, there's only one commercial airport in the country and there are (were I was there 20-some years ago) plenty of rural areas within the flight paths.
ReplyDeleteAlbanians are only nominally mohammedans; they're not observant, they're indifferent. The mosques in the countryside were all built with foreign money.
Albania is the most pro-American country in the world. Rail is pretty good rocket fuel
Boat Guy
Mullet are adapted to live in both salt and fresh water.
ReplyDeleteThe dictator, Hoxa (sp?) was quite possibly insane. Most definitely was paranoid as he had military defensive bunkers built all over the country.
ReplyDelete