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Fermented Foods for Food Security and Food Sovereignty in the Balkans: A Case Study of the Gorani People of Northeastern Albania
Abstract and Figures
Traditional foodways are critical not only to food sovereignty in emerging and developing countries, but also to food security, eco-touristic development, small-scale food specialty markets, and local health strategies. We explore traditional knowledge concerning the fermentation of local plants (ethnozymology) for the production of medicinal and folk-functional foods perceived to have general health benefits. Field research was conducted in two Gorani communities in the mountains of NE Albania, located near the Kosovar border. Interviews were conducted with 44 study participants, and the fermentation of 15 plants for health purposes concerning disease prevention and health promotion was recorded. We discuss the role of fermentation in the production of local foods for health and its connections to community vitality and food security generally.
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... The Balkans in SE Europe represent a crucial hotspot of both biological and cultural diversities [11,12] and the region not only boasts one of the first ethnobiological studies ever conducted in the world (more than one century ago [13]), but also, during the two past decades, has hosted an impressive resurgence of studies focusing on folklore regarding plant biodiversity, especially among minority groups [12,14] and references therein. Albanian traditional ecological knowledge and practices (TEK), and in particular its wild plant-centered portion, have been the subject of various studies [15][16][17][18][19][20], and it has been for our research group always particularly inspiring to study the ethnobotany of communities living at the Slavic-Albanian cultural edges in Albania, Kosovo, and North Macedonia. Within these communities a special case study is represented by Reka Albanians, i.e., the Albanian population living in the Reka Valley (nowadays in the NW area of North Macedonia), who have been the focus of historical, linguistic, and ethnographic interest for many decades [21][22][23][24], especially because of their specific dialect and folk customs, and the fact that this has possibly been one of the poorest and most disadvantaged areas in the Albanian mountains. ...
... In-depth semi-structured interviews, as well as participant observation, were conducted in August 2022 with elderly community members (n = 34) of five Albanian mountain villages located in North Macedonia ( Figure 1). knowledge and practices (TEK), and in particular its wild plant-centered portion, have been the subject of various studies [15][16][17][18][19][20], and it has been for our research group always particularly inspiring to study the ethnobotany of communities living at the Slavic-Albanian cultural edges in Albania, Kosovo, and North Macedonia. Within these communities a special case study is represented by Reka Albanians, i.e., the Albanian population living in the Reka Valley (nowadays in the NW area of North Macedonia), who have been the focus of historical, linguistic, and ethnographic interest for many decades [21][22][23][24], especially because of their specific dialect and folk customs, and the fact that this has possibly been one of the poorest and most disadvantaged areas in the Albanian mountains. ...
... A historical comparison of the gathered data was conducted using the account about Reka daily life written by Bajazid Doda around one century ago [22], as well as sources describing the ethnobotanies of surrounding communities [17][18][19][20]30,31] and Macedonian/Bulgarian folklore [32][33][34]. Table 1 shows the wild plants quoted by the study participants, listed in alphabetical order; the study participants quoted 54 species belonging to 35 genera and 29 families with one unidentified ethno-taxon. ...
Cultural diversity and biodiversity are strongly intertwined through the ways in which local human communities have understood, categorized, perceived, and used nature and species for centuries. Folk nomenclature and uses of wild plants in particular are strongly linked to specific ethno-diversities and have often been considered as cultural markers. In the current study, through thirty-one interviews with elderly villagers, the ethnobotany of five Albanian villages in North Macedonia was recorded, as these villages are inhabited by descendants of Reka Albanians, whose peculiar dialect and customs have been the subject in the past of some linguistic, historical, and ethnographic works. A few folk names and utilizations of commonly used species (such as Rumex, Urtica, Tilia, Crocus, and Hypericum spp.), as well as the traditional customs of collecting tree cambium during the spring and ritually adorning home doors with Cornus mas and Salix spp. branches on St. George’s Day, partially overlap Macedonian/Bulgarian folklore, and, to a minor extent, data previously collected in NE Albania and South Kosovo. Nevertheless, some archaic uses (such as the consumption of Crocus corms) remain very idiosyncratic. While the origin of the Reka Albanians and the exact historical reasons for their peculiar ethnobotany practices cannot be exactly established, the data showed that this cultural group living at the cultural edge between the Albanian and South Balkan Slavic realms has maintained its diversity until the present. Its uniqueness should be valorized and celebrated.
... All these biocultural facets can be visualized through the diversity of food products and practices related to it, and provide basic notions about what is edible, where and when edible elements are available, the way these should be harvested, and how they can be improved by cooking, roasting, fermenting, or making it harmless (Lévi- Strauss, 2012;Ratcliffe et al., 2019;Tamang et al., 2020Tamang et al., , 2021Tsafrakidou et al., 2020;Fernández-Llamazares et al., 2021;Gadaga et al., 2021;Kennedy et al., 2021). Fermentation practices are part of the local knowledge and food systems, directed to procure and improve human health and wellbeing, but fermented products have changed the human food supply worldwide (Harris et al., 1989;Kuhnlein and Receveur, 1996;Steinkraus, 1996;Harris, 1998;Quave and Pieroni, 2014;Svanberg, 2015;Sõukand et al., 2015;Flachs and Orkin, 2019;He et al., 2019). Fermentation can contribute to construct sustainable food systems, diversify food production, and procure safety, security and sovereignty in human communities around the world (Johns and Sthapit, 2004;Marshall and Mejia, 2011;Ojeda-Linares et al., 2021). ...
... The influence of human management over composition, structure and dynamics of microbial communities has been insufficiently analyzed, even when humans historically have developed numerous management techniques to direct, diversify and innovate the quality or to prevent the spoilage of fermented products around the world (Tamang and Fleet, 2009;Tamang et al., 2016). Ethnozymological studies have documented a wide range of activities that producers perform to adequate fermented products to their purposes; for instance, boiling the substrates, adding salt, plant, or animal products with antiseptic or flavoring roles are common practices (Quave and Pieroni, 2014;Hong et al., 2015;Sõukand et al., 2015;Pieroni et al., 2017;Álvarez-Ríos et al., 2020;Ojeda-Linares et al., 2021). Documenting the known-how of the management over the microbial communities in fermented products has high importance to understand the implications of human practices on the structure and dynamics of microbial communities during fermentation and to recover old human experience for innovation. ...
Ecology and evolution are the core disciplines that investigate the processes that generate and maintain biodiversity in space and time. The theoretical and applied studies produced in these two disciplines represent pivotal information to set conservation biology priorities. Because humans represent one of the main factors contributing to land-use changes in world ecosystems, it is essential to include them in theoretical and applied studies. However, most of the current literature in ecology, evolution, and conservation (hereafter called “biodiversity disciplines”) uses the variable “human” basically as the negative driver causing biodiversity loss. On the one hand, by including humans as the source of biodiversity loss, this literature provides relevant information to be broadly used in biodiversity management and conservation. On the other hand, disregarding that local populations depend on biodiversity for a living could hamper our ability to produce socially inclusive theories.
... Gary Paul Nabhan (2010, p. 183) was among the first to recognize the critical role of ethnobiologists in contextualizing "how human cultural and technological change may be affecting our 'food cultures'those in our fermenting vats, sourdough starters, vinegar mothers and our very own guts." Inquiries into fermentation have been a fruitful avenue for collecting ethnobiological insights from traditional practices (Flachs and Orkin 2021;Quave and Pieroni 2014;Sõukand et al. 2015;Yamin-Pasternak et al. 2014). Flachs and Orkin (2019), in their topical review on "Fermentation and the Ethnobiology of Microbial Entanglement," argue that microbes deserve further ethnobiological attention, "not only as threats but also as complex and beneficial actors in our lives" (Flachs and Orkin 2019, p. 35). ...
Thanks to recent human microbiome research, we are gradually gaining a better understanding of the vital role that microbial diversity plays in health and well-being. However, as industrial food production standardizes fermented foods—making monoculture “probiotics”—we risk losing both microbial diversity and the cultural heritage of how to sustain it. This article takes yogurt as a case study to explore the ongoing disappearance of microbial biodiversity and its relationship to food practices. As an ancient fermentation product, yogurt has a rich biocultural heritage that is reflected in its diverse preparation methods—including, as this article describes, using ants and spring rain. I employed autoethnography as a form of qualitative inquiry to trace the stories of yogurt passed down through generations in my community from the Rhodope Mountains. Here multispecies and sensory approaches allowed me to delve into the intimate cultural and personal aspects of yogurt making. The stories I gathered from Bulgaria and Turkey reveal the richness of interspecies and sensorial connections involved in yogurt production. I argue that these practices cultivate diverse multispecies relationships and provide valuable insights into the broader loss of biocultural diversity. This article is thus an invitation to reflect on the ways in which the contemporary biodiversity crisis is related to the loss of local cultural knowledge, skills, and wisdom that have long nurtured diverse and generative multispecies relationships.
... 1. The characterization of the foodscape in terms of the diversity of food ingredients, products, and dishes (e.g., Quave and Pieroni 2014;Rampedi and Olivier 2013). ...
In the past two decades, ethnobiologists have increasingly paid attention to the scouting and documentation of endangered corpora of local food elements and associated traditional knowledge. In this endeavor, food scouting encompasses the methodological tools used for mapping, inventorying, and documenting food and food-related resources. The growing body of research in this field is shedding light on the potentialities of these practices in obtaining baseline data regarding food heritage, which can, in turn, empower local communities in their dynamic understanding and safeguarding of this resource. While food scouting have been gaining an important role in current food and gastronomic ethnobiological research, as well as in other fields of study (e.g., geography and anthropology), little attention has been paid thus far to the methods and approaches underpinning these activities. To partially fill this gap, this contribution aims to tackle some methodological issues connected to the documentation of food and gastronomic elements embedded in local knowledge. Acknowledging the plethora of methods applicable in food scouting research, we describe three specific applications of food scouting to elicit data on local food diversity, highlighting their prospects and limitations. The first case addresses market surveys to obtain baseline data on the local food systems and their associated diversity, the second focuses on context-based freelisting methods for eliciting wild food plant uses, and the third discusses methods for scouting and inventorying artisanal food products. Acknowledging the contributions of Justin Nolan to the advancement of methods in the field of ethnobiology, we suggest that the methodological toolkit of food scouting should include ad hoc transdisciplinary platforms codesigned together with local food actors.
... In the same study, about the same percentage was unsure whether cultured dairy products were fermented [28]. In our study, participants were mostly aware of the role of lactic acid bacteria, which is not surprising since they are commonly referred to as probiotics and are heavily promoted, especially for intestinal health [33]. Our study population demonstrated a better knowledge of the presence and role of LAB in fermented foods than the population in the study by Suahoo et al. [25]. ...
Background
Fermented foods are staples of the human diet and fermentation process has been used by humans for thousands of years. The preparation of fermented foods was performed in the past without knowledge of the role of microorganisms involved. Nowadays, fermented foods, due to their proclaimed health benefits for consumers, are becoming increasingly popular. Our study was constructed to provide data on awareness and use of fermented foods among people in North-eastern Slovenia.
Methods
The cross-sectional study included 349 individuals (16–89 years of age). An online survey was designed to assess the participants' knowledge of fermentation, fermented foods, the consumption of fermented foods and awareness of the health benefits. Data were collected from March to June 2021 and analyzed using IBM SPSS 27.0.
Results
Compared with the youngest participants (< 21 years) knowledge of fermentation was higher in older individuals ( p < 0.001). More than a half of the participants recognized the role of lactic acid bacteria and yeasts in fermentation process, however, only 18.3% of participants were aware of the role of the molds. Only 25.9% of the participants have become acquainted with fermented foods at home and 62.2% of them were aware of health benefits of fermented foods, but mostly on gastrointestinal health and the immune system.
Conclusions
As people today live predominantly in urban areas and incline towards westernized foods, they often lack the knowledge of fermentation and awareness regarding the nutritional value of fermented foods and their preparation. Steps should be taken to educate younger generations regarding the health benefits of fermented foods especially considering that most of them expressed their interest in learning more about the process.
... This task will require fieldwork, information about the distribution of the substrates related to each beverage, and a careful characterization of localities where it is produced, using approaches from ethnobiology and ethnography that could bring insights about the possible processes of cultural erosion and the effects of market pressures and cultural discrimination over these marginal products. Such studies could also be the way to promote maintaining or the revival of these products [28,192]. The loss of traditional food systems will result in decreasing culture-specific food activities, thus influencing the decrease of dietary diversity [193]. ...
This reprint presents a print version of the Special Issue of the journal {Foods} dedicated to new insights into food fermentation. Food fermentation has been used for thousands of years for food preservation. At present, fermented foods remain appreciated by consumers thanks to the high-quality standards achieved and the improvements in terms of nutritional and organoleptic characteristics. The production processes, type of raw material, microbial cultures, etc., can affect these products’ quality and safety characteristics. A vast array of microorganisms can be found in fermented foods, and microbial succession during fermentation, as well as during ripening,
contributes to the desired properties of these foods. In addition to the sensory and safety aspects, microorganisms present in fermented foods can positively affect people’s health due to their potential probiotic nature and the production of benefcial metabolites such as vitamins and antioxidant compounds.
The goal of this Special Issue was to broaden the current knowledge on advanced approaches concerning food fermentation, gathering studies on conventional and unconventional food matrix fermentation, functional compounds obtained through fermentation, fermentations increasing quality and safety standards, as well as papers presenting innovative approaches shedding light on the microbial community that characterizes fermented foods.
In the 13 papers collected in this volume, interested readers will fnd a collection of scientific contributions providing a sample of the state-of-the-art and forefront research in food fermentation. Among the articles published in the Special Issue, the geographic distribution of the studies is wide enough to attract the interest of an international audience of readers. The editors would like to thank the authors for their collaboration and commitment to publishing their high-quality scientifc articles.
Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) concerning the use of plants for different purposes had survival value, are embedded in culture and considered adaptive responses to environmental challenges. Albania is known for its rich linguistic, cultural and biological diversity. Albanian flora has a high considerably number of medicinal plants and they have been extensively used albeit expressed in folk medicinal knowledge and practices. Several ethnobotanical studies and extensive fieldwork have been conducted in Albania both by local and foreign scientists. In addition, ethnobotany is experiencing a theoretical and conceptual diversification. The history of ethnobotany can be at least can be traced back in 19 th century. This article aims to provide an historical and theoretical review of ethnobotany in Albania and outlines possibilities for future advancements.
Having suffered from a global epidemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) mutants and variants, the entire world has turned its attention and hope to natural treatments that can keep the immune system active and strong. Recent research on some herbal preparations promises high hopes that they may be potential candidates for developing effective and safe immune-boosting drugs. Considering that Turkey has the richest flora in Europe and the Middle East and has an invaluable ethnomedical background, it offers a treasure-worthy potential for serious researchers. 128 plant taxa belonging to 41 families were determined from 99 works carried out in different regions of Turkey. Of these, only 60 (46.9%) were found to be responded to experimental studies worldwide on immune system enhancement and other similar activities. Quercetin (10.3%), β-glucan, and catechin (5.1%) emerged as the most prevalent effective ingredients among the 39 identified. Urtica dioica (39.4%), Rosa canina (34.3%), and Punica granatum (17.2%) were recorded as the most used plants in Turkey. In addition, Phoenix dactylifera has appeared as the taxon with more active compounds in the literature. This study presents the first national inventory of immune-boosting plants that are regularly used in traditional Turkish medicine, not only against COVID-19 but for the prevention and treatment of epidemic diseases in general. We present 68 (53.1%) plants whose effective immune-stimulating and strengthening properties have been confirmed in experimental studies in the world literature as ready-made material for the relevant pharmacological sectors.KeywordsCOVID-19Immune-boostingImmunostimulantMedicinal plantPandemicTurkey
In genocidal war crimes cases, failed transitional justice, ethnonational and socially defensive collective confutation, and generated victimization narratives lead societies into a "new state of conflict." These adverse processes influence the perspective of "positive peace," i.e., unlock the structural factors of "negative peace" and decrease state-building potentials in some former Yugoslavia countries. Consequently, such social and political circumstances prolong the suffering of victims (war survivors, detainees in concentration camps, raped women) and families of deceased and missing victims. Moreover, these methods contain non-violent social-psychological dimensions and are active mechanisms that constitute various social and political agencies. Consequently, such occurrences affect peaceful coexistence and integral assimilation into the EU of Western Balkan nations. Accordingly, raising social awareness and stricter legislation related to the dominant mainstream sociopolitical approach to denying internationally sentenced crimes against humanity and genocide is required. Moreover, the rational and pragmatic approach to collective defensive "victimization" and denial narratives (with periodical ideological-mythological elements) is vital. Additionally, the EU and USA's sincere objectives and support for "democratization, the rule of law and political ethics" in the Western Balkans are required and significant. Furthermore, regionally, how to make universal transitional justice a means of positive peace shift and Reconciliation is imperative. It is a fundamental open question that must achieve global implication and visibility after the lethal 1990s. Thirty years of disputable sociopolitical, legal, and human security progress in the Balkans demonstrate it. Keywords: former Yugoslavia, Crimes against humanity, Genocide denial, Ethnopolitics, Confutation & denial agency, Reconciliation
In genocidal war crimes cases, failed transitional justice, ethnonational and socially defensive collective confutation, and generated victimization narratives lead societies into a "new state of conflict." These adverse processes influence the perspective of "positive peace," i.e., unlock the structural factors of "negative peace" and decrease state-building potentials in some former Yugoslavia countries. Consequently, such social and political circumstances prolong the suffering of victims (war survivors, detainees in concentration camps, raped women) and families of deceased and missing victims. Moreover, these methods contain non-violent social-psychological dimensions and are active mechanisms that constitute various social and political agencies. Consequently, such occurrences affect peaceful coexistence and integral assimilation into the EU of Western Balkan nations. Accordingly, raising social awareness and stricter legislation related to the dominant mainstream sociopolitical approach to denying internationally sentenced crimes against humanity and genocide is required. Moreover, the rational and pragmatic approach to collective defensive "victimization" and denial narratives (with periodical ideological-mythological elements) is vital. Additionally, the EU and USA's sincere objectives and support for "democratization, the rule of law and political ethics" in the Western Balkans are required and significant. Furthermore, regionally, how to make universal transitional justice a means of positive peace shift and Reconciliation is imperative. It is a fundamental open question that must achieve global implication and visibility after the lethal 1990s. Thirty years of disputable sociopolitical, legal, and human security progress in the Balkans demonstrate it. Keywords: former Yugoslavia, Crimes against humanity, Genocide denial, Ethnopolitics, Confutation & denial agency, Reconciliation
The present stady was done to select the potential aatochthonoas lactic acid bacteria (LAB) for the prodaction of shalgam, which is a traditional Tarkish lactic acid-fermented beverage. Eighteen LAB belonging to the genera Lactobacillus, Lactococcus, Pediococcus, and Leuconostoc isolated previoasly from shalgam samples prodaced in the aniversity laboratory and by small- and largescale prodacers in indastry were ased. Pastearized black carrot jaice was inocalated individaally with these selected LAB strains and fermented for 10 days. The strains of Lb. plantarum gave the highest nambers daring fermentations with a range of 9.40-9.16 log cfa mL-1. Lb. plantarumbx prodaced the highest total acidity, 22.86 g L-1 as lactic acid, followed by Lb. paracasei sabsp. paracasei 2, Lb. plantarumcx, Lb. plantarumax, and Lb. fermentum, with a range of 20.45-22 g L-1 as lactic acid. Only Lb. delbrueckii sabsp. delbrueckii and Lb. fermentum grew at 45 °C, bat none of the LAB species grew with 18% NaCl and at pH 9.6. Daring the sensory analysis, the most preferred sample was that obtained by Lb. plantarum bx, followed by Lb. fermentum and Lb. paracasei sabsp. paracasei 2. These findings indicate that Lb. plantarumbx, Lb. fermentum, and Lb. paracasei subsp. paracasei 2 have potential as starter caltares for the prodaction of shalgam.
Fermented foods are of great significance because they provide and preserve vast quantities of nutritious foods in a wide diversity of flavors, aromas and textures which enrich the human diet. Fermented foods have been with us since humans arrived on Earth. They will be with us far into the future as they are the source of alcoholic foods/beverages, vinegar, pickled vegetables, sausages, cheeses, yogurts, vegetable protein amino acid/peptide sauces and pastes with meat-like flavors, leavened and sour-dough breads. While the Western world can afford to enrich its foods with synthetic vitamins, the developing world must rely upon biological enrichment for its vitamins and essential amino acids. The affluent Western world cans and freezes much of its foods but the developing world must rely upon fermentation and dehydration to preserve its foods at costs within the budgets of the average consumer. All consumers today have a considerable portion of their nutritional needs met through fermented foods and beverages. This is likely to expand in the twenty-first century when world population reaches 8–12 billion.