To a Muslim-Albanian mother, there is nothing more disrespectful than your child telling you that they enjoyed someone else’s baklava more than theirs. Lucky for me, I think my mom makes the best desserts out of any of my cousins, so this issue does not come up too often. Along with baklava, Albanians tend to whip up many other desserts, like “tulumba” and “sheqerpare” during Ramadan. This is one of the only events in Albanian culture where the savory delicacies take the backseat and sugary desserts are given their time to shine.
As mentioned earlier, there is a sense of rivalry felt between the mothers of the different households in the family. Most women are too prideful to ask others for their dessert recipes because that would mean they don’t know how to cook/bake well enough for themselves. I think that this can be attributed to the common characteristic that Albanians share; competitiveness. To people from other cultures, this idea of not sharing recipes can seem odd, but it’s an unspoken rule between Albanians that one must put 150% of their effort into something before asking for help. This idea of competition translates into many other factors of Albanian life. We’re taught to never ask for anything from anyone outside of our family out of fear that we’ll be seen as less than them. I definitely don’t love this aspect of my culture, but, hey, at least we have good food!
