Bulgarian Cuisine
The Old Bulgarian cuisine is closely related to the main occupation of the Bulgarians – agriculture. The everyday dishes consisted mainly of vegetable food and bread; meat was prepared only on holidays.
Country bread and cheese
Bulgarians eat soups made of sorrel, spinach, nettle, beans, lentils, mushrooms, and respective stews. The traditional meat dishes have been kapama (different kind of meat and vegetables), lamb, gyuvech (mead and vegetables), beef with gumbo, pork with pickled cabbage, stuffed fowl, sarmi (stuffed cabbage, or vine leaves) and variety of home-made sausages.
Beans Soup in Pot
Fish and pastry dishes were prepared as well, but they were used mainly for different treats and customs like prostapulnik (home made bread made when a child makes his first steps), tutmanik (pastry with cheese, eggs, and yoghurt), bznitsa (pastry with different filling – white cheese, spinach, apples), baklava, tikvenik (pumpkin pastry), zelnik (cabbage pastry).
Baklava
Bulgarian food is prepared out of ecologically pure and natural products, which brings a unique taste to the Bulgarian dishes.
Vegetables and fruits from the Garden
The combination of milk or yoghurt with other products is also typical for the Bulgarian national cuisine. It enriches the technology of food preparation and adds to their sterling and healing effect.
Bulgarian cuisine is characterized by the variety of dishes with sauces – stews, kebaps, kavarma, and plakiya, which taste wonderful with a lot of bread. Mush and fricassee also exist in the Bulgarian culinary tradition.
Typical for the Bulgarian cuisine is the home food preservation. Meat, vegetables, and fruit are sterilized in jars. The preserved meet and vegetables are used all year long, while the preserved fruit (kompot – fruit boiled in sugar water) are favored desserts. The lack of fresh salads in winter is compensated with sterilized and chemically stabilized pickles – separately marinated vegetables (red pepper, chilly peppers, green tomatoes, cabbage), or marinated vegetable mix (king pickles – cauliflower, carrots, round fleshy peppers, celery).
Bulgarian cuisine pretends to have the patent on many Balkan culinary specialties, but at the same time we have learned from the experience of our neighbors. The influence of the Orient is indisputable, including the influence of Austria and Hungary, as well as of the Mediterranean. The traditional cuisine is specific for the different geographic and ethnographic regions, depending on the local food and customs.
Bulgarian food is prepared out of ecologically pure and natural products, which brings a unique taste to the Bulgarian dishes.
