By Alba ȥla
Albanians celebrate Summer Day on the 14th of March. It’s an official holiday that gives the opportunity to thousands of people to fill up the parks, have picnics and enjoy a relaxed day in the reliable Mediterranean spring sun. This origin of this celebratory day goes back to the ancient reverence towards nature, the pre-religious beliefs that the rebirth of mother earth experienced in spring is attributed to the benevolent gods of nature. Actually Summer Day is celebrated mainly in the city of Elbasan, where traditionally the festivity has trademarked the city. The municipality organizes the Summer Festival with cultural and folkloristic activities filling up the streets. Many people from the surrounding cities travel to Elbasan to get a traditional fare as well a try the ballokume , the tasty traditional cookies prepared especially for the day.
I traveled to Elbasan to see for the first time from up close the atmosphere of the holiday. The minibuses have doubled the fare given the incredible demand. The city expects almost one million visitors on this day. The streets were filled with people, mostly of a young age, Roma musicians and dancers, ballokume vendors and large families sitting in restaurants that were reserved long ago. Actually if you come here without a plan you might run the risk of not finding a place where to sit. The hills around the city hosted a large number of families that have left the cacophony of the city’s plaza and chose a quiet picnic in nature to celebrate.
“Elbasani people love to have fun and dance to the sounds of folk music,” Marenglen our local host explains to me. ” This day is more important to us than even New Years Eve. I have family visiting form all over and it’s a two days long party in our house.” He has brought ballokume for us respecting the tradition of hospitality. The big concert with famous Albanian singers has been held the night before where the main square was filled with people welcoming spring around bonfires. The morning of the 14th has lured the ones who made it to wake up early into a carnival parade as a well as a spring fair.
Both in Elbasan and in Tirana the main boulevards were closed to traffic in order to give people a chance to stroll by and enjoy the holiday. Music and laughter are the best welcoming tokens to spring along with a generous lunch. The concerts and activities planed beforehand from the respective local authorities add up to the festive atmosphere. The holiday has definitely shifted form being a local one, mainly for the central Albanian towns (Elbasan, Fier, Berat) to a national one culminating in the activities organized in Tirana. For the first time this year, a private company Re Bull recruited Czech airplanes to give a special show for the festivities.
Elbasan is not the only city that gets a special treatment during March 14. As a child I grew up in Berat, further down in the south. Elbasan and Berat share the same magnificent mountain of Tomorri. I remember that my grandmother made me go through a long ritual of traditions on March 14. The logic was that everything that happens in this day conditions the entire upcoming year. Thus I had to get up early and hold on to an iron door knob. This would make me feel healthy and strong. I had to put a bit of pomegranate juice on my cheeks so that they would always be rosy. The main door of our garden would be decorated with flowers and grass blades to welcome the beauty of spring.
When I asked in Elbasan the told me the flowers had to be gathered one day earlier and left in water al night. The next morning the youngest child of the family had to splash some of this water on the face in order to procure year long health. Only after the privileged youngest had completed the ritual the rest of the family could do the same.
My grandmother would have baked the traditional pie with one coin inside. Whoever got the coin would be the luckiest one in the family. There were also packages with sweet and boiled eggs to be delivered to relatives and neighbors as a sign of harmony and well-being. The boiled eggs had to be died in all rainbow colors to symbolize blossoming spring. Children would boast about their multicolored collection of eggs. The most traditional thing of the Summer Day preparations was the thread bracelet made out of a red and a white thread that we used to put in our wrists. The verore (the name of this bracelet) would be attached to the body until one saw the migratory birds. There is still a controversy in my head whether these would be storks or swallows.
The habit has also survived in the Arberesh communities in Italy who put in their doorsteps a little piece of soil with fresh grass blades.
The tradition of the Summer Day, as I would later happily discover, is a regional one. As a student in Bulgaria I annually got the same bracelets this time called martenitsa-s with the same wish for health and happiness. Giving out martenitsa-s was a sign of friendship and benevolence. I still get some every year and put them on with superstitious determination.
The beginning of spring is a traditional celebration for Moldova, Albania, Romania, Bulgaria, and Macedonia. Except for Albania, all the other countries celebrate the beginning of spring on March 1. In Moldova and Romania, on this day men give women a little talisman in a red and white ribbon that represents a powerful and healthy new year. The word “Martisor” is the dimunitive for the month of March and is something similar to little March. Martisor is not a religious holiday, but a celebration of mother nature that is believed to have started when the region was invaded by the pagan Romans.
Throughout the Balkans Summer or Spring Day is an occassion to come together and welcome the season of beauty and rebirth, an occasion to relax, celebrate together with friends and family, respect ancient traditions and look forward to the year with optimism and a sweet tooth.
Recipe for Ballokume
‘Ballokume’ is the traditional dish made on 14th March, Summer’s Day.
Ingredients: 1 kg sugar, 0.5 kg butter, 1 kg corn flour (sifted), one handful of wheat flour, 8 eggs, 1 cup of milk; one big whitened copper or glass vessel.
Preparation: Beat the butter together with the sugar until it forms a white mass. This is best done by hand to reach a consistency that is thread-like. Mix the eggs with milk and then slowly added to the beaten sugar, while mixing continuously. Still stirring, add the flour slowly. Be careful while adding the flour as too much flour can make the ‘ballokume’ too hard. This is why after the pre-determined quantity of flour has been added, leave the dough untouched for 15 minutes even if it looks quite wet. This time is enough for the flour particles to absorb the moisture of the soggy dough. Afterwards, if necessary, if the dough remains soggy, another handful of flour may be added.
Baking: Sprinkle the baking tray with flour and put on it balls of the dough about the size of a fist. Bake them for about 40 minutes at 170у until a crust is formed on the top (not until they redden). Remove the baking tray and leave the ‘ballokume’ to cool down so they can be easily detached.
