Staging and Performing Tradition in Kosova Restaurants

Abstract In this essay, I describe and discuss the ways in which tradition is demonstrated, staged and understood in Kosova restaurants. After the 1999 war in Kosova, restaurants emerged as new places, privately public and publicly private, that display local aspirations and intentions to re-invent the roots of tradition and construct routes to Europe. In addition, they illustrate the intention to modernise, and provide routines for social life and conviviality. Within the context of gastronationalism and culinary diversity, I use local language derived concepts such as katunopia and sofraisation to argue that Kosova gastronomy is undergoing continuous change and transformation characterised by a process of searching, combining, inventing and re-vitalising ‘tradition’ to build a new culinary identity.