Radio Bulgaria

Shopska salad and banitsa /cheese pie/ - most of the tourists that visit this country see those as the traditional Bulgarian cuisine. According to Chef Valeri Neshov this is not true and he proves his point by searching the hidden treasures of Bulgarian culinary. While traveling across this country he discovers unknown delicacies, such the milk krokmach, or the navpavok meal, made of minced meat. 

“In my opinion there is no such thing as an entirely Bulgarian cuisine. We can talk about a Balkan one,” Valeri says. “We have been under Ottoman rule for five centuries, many nations have crossed these lands, leaving a trace in our food, traditions, culture. The Bulgarian cuisine – it is not only about shopska salad, banitsa, moussaka and stew. People should think about what their grandparents used to eat – each region has unique and specific dishes. I can say that five main meals were prepared in my village on the occasions of weddings, christening or funeral – mutton with rice, veal with prunes and rice, and the karnache piece of raw saussage, quite well-known in Bulgaria – but this time the recipe is a local one. The krokmach should be mentioned too, or gipsy bread – a thin cake, prepared with quass, not yeast. The bread takes 10 minutes to be prepared, but one needs 4-5 days for the quass to be made.”

“Products are preserved thanks to elderly people, but they start to disappear with them too,” says the cook, who has been awarded with the 2010 Own Cuisine Award and has his TV show too. Peninsula of Treasures is dedicated to Bulgarian and Balkan culinary that is less known. Chef Neshov showed curiosity towards those local specialties about ten years ago, when a restaurant owner asked him to offer something typically Bulgarian, but unfamiliar at the same time. The initial reaction was: “There is no such thing! ”Then Valeri’s grandmother fed him with krokmach and it occurred to him that it was the product wanted. It turned out, however that they couldn’t find the necessary quantities, since krokmach was a delicacy that was prepared only in a certain period of the year. “It became a hit, when we included it in the menu next year – some of our customers came for krokmach only,” Chef Valeri Neshov says.
“Krokmach is a product, made by pure sheep’s milk from the August-October period, when it is thickest, with lowest percentage of water. It is boiled in water and then salted. When there is no oxygen inside the pot, which keeps the product at a temperature of 4C-6C, it can be preserved for up to 2 years. Actually many Balkan and Bulgarian products appeared due to the simple reason that people wanted to preserve their food as long as possible, Valeri goes on to say. So they experimented and thus delicacies, such as the Elena ham from the Harvalovtsi neighborhood in the Elena Balkan, the beaten Smilyan cheese, krokmach and katak appeared. Folks often confuse the last two products, but those are different – there is no yeast in the krokmach, it thickens due to the Lactobacillus Lactis bacterium. Research showed that 850 mln. live bacteria existed in 1 g of the product. To compare – people buy milk products with less than 100 mln. live bacteria, which is not good.”

The chef came upon another delicacy in the Gorno Draglishte village near the town of Blagoevgrad, with the strange name navpavok. “It is prepared by the finest pork – tenderloin, ham, neck and some bacon and it is stuffed in the pig’s bladder,” Valeri explains.
“The meat itself is not sliced, but chopped and people do that with an adze. Then they add special spices that are kept a secret. One cannot prepare navpavok at any other place, since the climate is also essential, along with the peculiar preserving method. The initial period is 3-4 months. After drying up, it is kept in ash that has to come only from wood, burnt in the cooker. Thus the product can spend two years, since wood ash would not allow any larvae or insects inside, nor molds or decays.”

Chef Valeri Neshov wants all those specific products from different regions to enter the market, but the industrialization process should be avoided somehow, opening at the same time jobs at the producer’s native places. What is the way to do that?

“There should be governmental policy and will, protecting small farmers and producers. People that produce napvavok breed up to 10 pigs, they don’t have the capacity. A lab analysis is also necessary, but it is really expensive. Authorities also require big areas that should follow some standards… Trust me, no such thing can be observed in France or Germany…”

Valeri Neshov often travels in this country and abroad, as he loves to meet elderly Bulgarians.
“I always try to connect with them, since they have the treasures. Unfortunately authentic products are not preserved and kept, since they have always been consumed at home. A family makes green cheese, but only for themselves, while western farmers produce certain amounts and the greater share goes to the market, thus distributing the product. What I’ve learned from elderly Bulgarians is that we should keep the traditions, love and spread them. That is the essential thing!” 

English version: Zhivko Stanchev