Today is Saturday ( 26 October 2013) and I have to finalize 2 reports until Monday. My younger son is playing football with his friends and my husband is at work until early afternoon. It is a shiny, sunny and warm day in Tirana. It feels more like spring. From our trip some days ago in the east north Albania, I collected some fruits which we like them a lot in our country. Thana or Cornelian Cherry.
In Albania we eat them as a fruit ( they are a little bit sour), or make a sirop ( which is quite healthy if you have stomach pains or we make a jam / preserve.
I’m making some jam write now and these fruits are boiling now ( so I’ll post the photos later).
For those that are not familiar with the fruit this is a small note I took it from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Photos are taken from the tree we collected them.
Cornus mas (Cornelian cherry, European cornel or Dogwood), (Albanian: Thana, Armenian: հոն hon, Persian: زغال اخته, Turkish: Kızılcık, Azerbaijani: Zoğal，Georgian: შინდი Chinese: 山茱萸, Romanian: Corn ) is a species of flowering plant in the dogwood family Cornaceae, native to southern Europe, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran and southwest Asia.
It is a medium to large deciduous shrub or small tree growing to 5–12 m tall, with dark brown branches and greenish twigs. The leaves are opposite, 4–10 cm long and 2–4 cm broad, with an ovate to oblong shape and an entire margin. The flowers are small (5–10 mm diameter), with four yellow petals, produced in clusters of 10–25 together in the late winter, well before the leaves appear. The fruit is an oblong red drupe 2 cm long and 1.5 cm in diameter, containing a single seed.
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Mom cooking at home 
Great, thanks for giving me the word for this fruit, Thana, something I have never found in the UK and could not even describe as I didn’t know the english word. Yes known and used in Albania, but much nicer in a jam, compote or syrup. Good to find your blog, Laura
Hi Laura , many thanks for following my post. Great to hear that you are from Albania. My husband is from Vuno and my Mom was from Vlora. It may mean sth that we met and following each other. Best, Eldisa
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