Turli Tava

Skopje. Autumn is pepper season and the whole country smells of it. Red peppers are roasted in quantity, peeled and cooked down with aubergine into ajvar and put up in jars for the winter, and whatever is not made into ajvar gets dried and ground into the paprika that colours nearly everything else.

North Macedonia. Ajvar season is a household event: peppers bought by the sack in autumn, roasted in the yard, peeled hot, minced and simmered down with oil for hours, then jarred to last the winter. In the Ohrid and Prespa regions, the layered pan-baked bread that Kosovo calls flija is made here as gjomleze, cooked in stages over a low fire.

Europe. European cooking is built on the land and the seasons, wheat, butter, and cured pork in the north; olive oil, tomatoes, and seafood around the Mediterranean; preserved vegetables and hearty stews through long winters. Centuries of peasant tradition, guild craft, and royal courts refined techniques from French mother sauces to Italian fresh pasta and Central European baking. Regional identity runs remarkably deep, with a single dish often changing from one valley to the next.