The full moon lay low and huge over the hills, giving a mercury shine to the lake’s choppy surface. We were deep in the Balkans and on a mission touched with mystery and a hint of danger.
It had started when work finished late on a balmy summer night. Although the hotel’s roof terrace offered a spectacular view over the water and the Albanian mountains on the far shore, the buffet dinner was uninspiring. So we asked some new-found Macedonian friends if they knew a good place to try the famed Lake Ohrid trout.
This provoked some consternation. Several whispered discussions followed over mobile phones in quick-fire Slavonic before a deal was struck and we were told to squeeze into Boris’ Nisan.
Soon we were revving out of Ohrid _ a pearl of city squeezed between the ramparts of Czar Samuel’s 10th-century fortress and the lakeside in a tangle of cobbled lanes, ancient taverns and medieval church domes resonant with the chants of Orthodox priests.
With midnight fast approaching our path dipped and rose past shadowy mountains, hushed villages and snatched glimpses of the glittering waterside. Then we arrived, edging the car into a dimly lit square and scurrying down an ally where our hosts were waiting.
This was clearly not just any trout, for the trout of Lake Ohrid are legend throughout the Balkans, so prized for their succulent flesh that over-fishing has left them endangered and visitors hoping to get a taste are forced to head out to clandestine fishermen’s haunts like the speakeasies of prohibition America.
It thus was with pangs of conscience as well fear of the local constabulary that we awaited the arrival of our illicit main course. But the Macedonians brushed aside any qualms, insisting such clandestine transactions were vital to keep fishermen and restaurant owners in business after the two year ban on trout catches _ and blaming the shortage on unregulated catches on the Albanian side of the lake.
Only when I read up back home did I find out just rare they were. Scientists believe the Ohrid trout are a throw back to the age of dinosaurs, the like of which are only found in a handful of ancient lakes.
Ohrid is one of Europe’s great hidden gems. Few places can combine such spectacular natural surroundings with the glories of 2,000 years of civilization. The city was a major staging post on the Via Egnatia linking Rome to Constantinople. Known as the “Balkan Jerusalem,” it developed as a Christian cultural centre reputed to have a church for every day of the year. Scholars here helped develop the Cyrillic alphabet. Albanians, Slavs, Byzantines and Ottomans sought to gain control before the 1390s saw the start of five centuries of Turkish rule that has left minarets alongside those church domes as well as the bazaar-like shopping streets and the taste for strong dark coffee.
Part of independent Macedonia since the break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, Ohrid looks out across Europe’s oldest lake. We were lucky to have just avoided a heat wave that had temperatures pushing up to the high 30s. Instead a balmy 25 C had crowds of local youngsters taking the sapphire clear and surprisingly warm waters of the lake in the lee of St. Jovan in Kaneo. This is Ohrid’s most photographed church _ a tiny red brick hive perched since the 13th century on a rocky promontory pointing out toward the Albanian shore. After the brilliance of the sunshine outside it takes a bit of time to adjust to the sombre interior, but 100 denar (2 euros) brings on the lights to reveal murals of a plethora of polychrome saints. The whole area is a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Back at our anonymous village, the mezzes were arriving, another Turkish tradition that lingers in the former Yugoslav republic. First a laden tray of crudités _ ripe tomatoes stuffed with sliced onion, fat black olives, shredded white cabbage, cucumber and pale green pickled peppers. Next up, a briny, hard feta-style white cheese served deliciously deep fried. Then a local specialty served for breakfast, lunch and dinner _ a kind of compressed, savoury pancake layer cake. There was a wonderfully pungent bowl of mashed garlic, lightly toasted country bread and wickedly hot grilled chilli peppers. This was all washed down with rakija _ not the aniseed flavoured raki of Turkey, but a mildly spiced brandy served ice cold. We were assured this one was homemade and at over 40 degrees was stronger than anything produced in neighbouring countries.
At this late hour we were the only customers, sitting under a vine trellis with the water lapping up alongside, our conversation broken only by the sound of the surf, a chorus of amorous bullfrogs and the occasional step of moonstruck couples wandering along the shingle shore.
Once the trout served in the Ohrid way was a major attraction here. The ban instigated by the sorry state of stocks is just the latest calamity to have hit the once thriving tourist trade, which has so far yet to entice Western travellers scared away by the violence of the Yugoslav wars.
A bottle of local traminer wine was produced. It came with a powerful floral perfume but turned out to be surprisingly dry and the perfect partner for the approaching fish.
The trout when they came were magnificent, the size of boxers forearms, they were split from head to tail and splayed for the pan, acquiring golden, crisp surface that peeled off the bone to reveal the sweet pink flesh within. The waiter said they’d been pulled form the lake barely an hour before. These were litnica, known as the summer trout. It is one of two species unique to Ohrid. The other belvica is the winter trout, although both seemed to be available on this June trip. In contrast to the rosy flesh of the litnica we were told its cousin has white meat. It was piscatorial perfection served just with a plate of chips, the vegetables left from our mezze and another bowl of that great garlic mash.
We finished up with sweet melon from the fertile lakeside fields and a cup of thing Turkish style coffee at around 2 a.m. Not only can I not reveal the name of the illicit restaurant, but I cannot say how much the feast cost _ Balkan hospitality dictated that our friends snatched up the bill before we had time to so much as glance at it.
It had started when work finished late on a balmy summer night. Although the hotel’s roof terrace offered a spectacular view over the water and the Albanian mountains on the far shore, the buffet dinner was uninspiring. So we asked some new-found Macedonian friends if they knew a good place to try the famed Lake Ohrid trout.
This provoked some consternation. Several whispered discussions followed over mobile phones in quick-fire Slavonic before a deal was struck and we were told to squeeze into Boris’ Nisan.
Soon we were revving out of Ohrid _ a pearl of city squeezed between the ramparts of Czar Samuel’s 10th-century fortress and the lakeside in a tangle of cobbled lanes, ancient taverns and medieval church domes resonant with the chants of Orthodox priests.
With midnight fast approaching our path dipped and rose past shadowy mountains, hushed villages and snatched glimpses of the glittering waterside. Then we arrived, edging the car into a dimly lit square and scurrying down an ally where our hosts were waiting.
This was clearly not just any trout, for the trout of Lake Ohrid are legend throughout the Balkans, so prized for their succulent flesh that over-fishing has left them endangered and visitors hoping to get a taste are forced to head out to clandestine fishermen’s haunts like the speakeasies of prohibition America.
It thus was with pangs of conscience as well fear of the local constabulary that we awaited the arrival of our illicit main course. But the Macedonians brushed aside any qualms, insisting such clandestine transactions were vital to keep fishermen and restaurant owners in business after the two year ban on trout catches _ and blaming the shortage on unregulated catches on the Albanian side of the lake.
Only when I read up back home did I find out just rare they were. Scientists believe the Ohrid trout are a throw back to the age of dinosaurs, the like of which are only found in a handful of ancient lakes.
Ohrid is one of Europe’s great hidden gems. Few places can combine such spectacular natural surroundings with the glories of 2,000 years of civilization. The city was a major staging post on the Via Egnatia linking Rome to Constantinople. Known as the “Balkan Jerusalem,” it developed as a Christian cultural centre reputed to have a church for every day of the year. Scholars here helped develop the Cyrillic alphabet. Albanians, Slavs, Byzantines and Ottomans sought to gain control before the 1390s saw the start of five centuries of Turkish rule that has left minarets alongside those church domes as well as the bazaar-like shopping streets and the taste for strong dark coffee.
Part of independent Macedonia since the break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, Ohrid looks out across Europe’s oldest lake. We were lucky to have just avoided a heat wave that had temperatures pushing up to the high 30s. Instead a balmy 25 C had crowds of local youngsters taking the sapphire clear and surprisingly warm waters of the lake in the lee of St. Jovan in Kaneo. This is Ohrid’s most photographed church _ a tiny red brick hive perched since the 13th century on a rocky promontory pointing out toward the Albanian shore. After the brilliance of the sunshine outside it takes a bit of time to adjust to the sombre interior, but 100 denar (2 euros) brings on the lights to reveal murals of a plethora of polychrome saints. The whole area is a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Back at our anonymous village, the mezzes were arriving, another Turkish tradition that lingers in the former Yugoslav republic. First a laden tray of crudités _ ripe tomatoes stuffed with sliced onion, fat black olives, shredded white cabbage, cucumber and pale green pickled peppers. Next up, a briny, hard feta-style white cheese served deliciously deep fried. Then a local specialty served for breakfast, lunch and dinner _ a kind of compressed, savoury pancake layer cake. There was a wonderfully pungent bowl of mashed garlic, lightly toasted country bread and wickedly hot grilled chilli peppers. This was all washed down with rakija _ not the aniseed flavoured raki of Turkey, but a mildly spiced brandy served ice cold. We were assured this one was homemade and at over 40 degrees was stronger than anything produced in neighbouring countries.
At this late hour we were the only customers, sitting under a vine trellis with the water lapping up alongside, our conversation broken only by the sound of the surf, a chorus of amorous bullfrogs and the occasional step of moonstruck couples wandering along the shingle shore.
Once the trout served in the Ohrid way was a major attraction here. The ban instigated by the sorry state of stocks is just the latest calamity to have hit the once thriving tourist trade, which has so far yet to entice Western travellers scared away by the violence of the Yugoslav wars.
A bottle of local traminer wine was produced. It came with a powerful floral perfume but turned out to be surprisingly dry and the perfect partner for the approaching fish.
The trout when they came were magnificent, the size of boxers forearms, they were split from head to tail and splayed for the pan, acquiring golden, crisp surface that peeled off the bone to reveal the sweet pink flesh within. The waiter said they’d been pulled form the lake barely an hour before. These were litnica, known as the summer trout. It is one of two species unique to Ohrid. The other belvica is the winter trout, although both seemed to be available on this June trip. In contrast to the rosy flesh of the litnica we were told its cousin has white meat. It was piscatorial perfection served just with a plate of chips, the vegetables left from our mezze and another bowl of that great garlic mash.
We finished up with sweet melon from the fertile lakeside fields and a cup of thing Turkish style coffee at around 2 a.m. Not only can I not reveal the name of the illicit restaurant, but I cannot say how much the feast cost _ Balkan hospitality dictated that our friends snatched up the bill before we had time to so much as glance at it. 
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