Geopolitics sets the menu at this restaurant in Belgrade
BELGRADE: Madagascar meatloaf, Laotian pork neck, Lesotho chicken kebab - politics sets the menu at Korcagin, a Serbian restaurant that serves food only from countries that don’t recognise Kosovo.
One Sunday, families filled the Belgrade tavern for a meal not normally associated with the Balkan state’s meat-heavy cuisine: black tiger prawns drizzled with a zesty orange sauce. It was billed as the national dish of Palau, a little- known archipelago in the Pacific Ocean that last month became the latest country to revoke recognition of Kosovo, a former Serbian province.
“Now everyone in Serbia knows Palau,” said Vojin Cucic, the 29-year-old owner of Korcagin, which every Sunday serves a speciality from a country that rejects Kosovo’s statehood.
Two decades after the ethnic Albanian-majority province broke away from Serbia in a guerrilla war, the neighbours are still locked in a heated recognition battle.
Kosovo has been recognised by more than 100 countries, including heavy hitters like the US and most of Western Europe, since its 2008 independence declaration.
But that’s only slightly more than half of the UN’S 193 member states, with the other camp including powerful nations like Russia and China.
Big or small, they share a fan base at Korcagin, whose walls are plastered with Yugoslavia-era photos, flags and other memorabilia from a time when Serbia and Kosovo were part of one country.