In the Lumbardhi cinema, namely in its summer kitchen, which has been established as a space for gathering, experimenting and tasting food, for three days the "Kitchen in reverse" program took place.
At the same time, it also served for the launch of the Co-Creative Platform "GërrGërr", which according to the founders encourages creators, artists and workers in the cultural sector to enter into dialogue with cultural heritage to produce new approaches, perspectives and readings of art, culture and local history, KOHA reports.
On the opening night, Blerta Ismaili from CHwB Kosova emphasized that the "GërrGërr" platform was founded by 7 cultural organizations and other cultural professionals.
"The purpose of the co-creative platform is actually to create a space where production, education and creation are possible in order to interact with cultural heritage", said Ismaili.
The first program of this platform, respectively "Reverse Kitchen" for three nights, included conversations between speakers, who shared different perspectives on contemporary interpretations of traditional cooking practices, as well as food production and economy.
The first speaker, Diona Nojani from Kuzhina e Lumbardhi, revealed her experience in leading the Summer Kitchen of Lumbardhi, from the conception to the interpretation in the menu of the ways she applied by integrating elements of traditional food.
"For the first time in Lumbardh there was a summer kitchen in 2019, which for me was a very good opportunity and a pleasure to participate here. The menu consisted of meat-free products, but with a lot of focus on traditional foods of ours and different countries", said Nojani.
She has shown how in the beginning there are challenges to introduce new flavors to the visitors of this kitchen.
"The experience here in the kitchen has shown me that people are not very open to new foods, new tastes, and there have been times when I have taken the spoon and told you to try, try, I have hardly convinced people I tried everything. But after a while, they started to get used to some things and continued to try new things", added Nojani.
While Jeton Jagxhiu presented to the audience the Food Diary of Prizren, a personal project that aims to find the identity of the city through its food heritage.
He clarified that it is a 52-week project, which summarizes the annual cycle of products that appear in the market of Prizren, which according to him is also the epicenter of food heritage, along with the extension in the city of food traditions and family cooking.
According to him, Kosovo has gone through a big transition, where most of the heritage has been lost, and that the only place where the heritage is the least damaged is in the city's cooking and food traditions.
"In order to follow food tradition, culture, we need to follow both, good geography, but also culture, I mean food heritage is created by people", said Jagxhiu.
spoke more extensively about his findings during the journey to document this food heritage, while he also linked the products, which according to him are neatly woven into the traditional dishes of Prizren.
it is the masterpiece of Prizren cuisine, the most solemn cooking, which is served for special occasions and is like Prizren, it has many colors, many flavors, they all mix. It has the taste of the mountains, where the ram is from the mountains, the vegetables are from another climatic zone, and this is a typical dish of Prizren. There is a certain fusion, a certain extraordinary mixture", Jagxhiu stated.
In the following days, Baton Domi from Soma spoke about Food at high altitudes while Nikolin Kola and Bledar Kola from the Rrno Foundation, Mullixhiu, presented the Albanian Gastronomy Expedition.
Through the "Reverse Kitchen" as well as interdisciplinary and cross-sector collaborations, the "GërrGërr" platform aims to fulfill the requirements of cultural heritage in the local context and ensure support and sustainability of local initiatives.