Jan and Cora gordon at Kjuks in 1925 and the story of the elusive meal

On their journey in 1925 from Elbasan towards Lake Ochrid (Ohrid today) in Albania, Jan and Cora (Jo) Gordon stopped at Kjuks (today Qukës Skënderbej) for food and accommodation.

Part of the map of their travels in Albania in 'Two Vagabonds in Albania' by Jan and Cora Gordon. To the east of Elbasan, you'll see 'Kjuks', the subject of this story.

They tell the story in chapter 3 of 'Two Vagabonds in Albania'.

 “HELLO!" Jo cried, striding into the wretched inn at Kjuks, a good day’s mountain ride from Elbasan, and the half-way house on the pass to Pogradec. "Where is the hahngee?"

"I" said a small boy of twelve looking perkily at her, "I am the hahngee." 

Cora Gordon's drawing of the Hahngee

"What is there to eat ? " asked Jo; "we are hungry." 

“There is anything your honour would like to demand," replied the hahngee. 

"Eggs?" 

"Certainly." 

"Meat?" 

“There is roast lamb.” 

“Milk?” 

“Any amount.” 

“Coffee?” 

“Of course.” 

So we ordered a satisfactory meal and prepared contentedly to wait. The Hahn [inn] was a two-storied hovelish affair. The bedrooms were entirely blackened with smoke but without beds, only rough straw mats on the floor. It stood on a small eminence, and near by the owner had erected a rough summer-house amongst a group of rocks. Here we sat for half an hour, until the clamouring of our stomachs becoming more insistent we went back to the hahn to see how our meal was getting on. 

"Oh, no, it isn't exactly ready yet," said the small hahngee. 

"How not exactly ready? Where are the eggs?" 

After a moment's hesitation the small hahngee pointed a chubby finger at the village, distant above and huddled into a hollow of the cliff. 

"Well," we asked, "why don't you send and fetch them?" 

"I-I don't know if the hens have laid them yet," replied the hahngee. 

"And where then is the roast mutton?" 

The hahngee pointed in another direction. Dimly on the mountain-side could be seen a miscellaneous flock. "The shepherd will have to bring the sheep down before we can kill one for your honour.” 

"Oh, well, we'll just have milk." 

This time the lad's finger wavered to the very top of the mountain. The cows were invisible. Actually three hours later we supped on some almost uneatable bread and some tepid rank milk.

"From creepies and crawlies and lang-leggity basties and things that go bump in the night, Good Lord, deliver us," says the old Scotch petition. Well, don't sleep at Kjuks, because there He won't, not from any of 'em! 

Next morning we ordered milk-coffee. "What is that?" they asked. "Why, hot milk with coffee in it," we said. So they warmed the milk a little, emptied in a cupful of the ground coffee bean and served the result with a grin of satisfaction. They had concocted a European's drink. We left Kjuks without one backward look.”

I thought I'd like to see Kjuks, or as it is known today, Qukës Skënderbej on the west side of the River Shkumbin, a little over a century after the Gordons visited. So yesterday (29th April 2026), with guide and driver Ramo, we went exploring and found an attractive group of houses and fields on the lower slopes of a tree covered hillside at the place indicated on the map by the Gordons. Here it is: 

The new road makes reaching this place from Elbasan quite easy, but Jan and Cora Gordon had laboured in the heat with their rented horses along the old mountain road.

Here's a GoogleEarth image to show the places mentioned above.