The traditional Bulgarian winter diet

published on 12/18/09 12:27 PM

Winter delicacies

Photo: BGNES

The traditional Bulgarian winter diet

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By tradition Bulgarians prepare the most lavish variety of dishes for Christmas and New Year’s Eve. The culinary choice is amazing. The diversity of dishes is of special importance as it is believed that whatever is found on the table laid for Christmas, will be even more diverse and abundant in the year to come. Before the feast takes off however, the diet is fairly humble, as the long Christmas Lent is observed. Still, in a way the Bulgarian traditional winter diet was more diverse than the summer one, as women were not working out in the field, and had more time to be around the hearth, ethnographer Dimitar Marinov explains. In Folk studio we take a look into the traditional Bulgarian winter diet.

The traditional Bulgarian house necessarily had a spacious refrigerator – the cellar, called in Bulgarian zimnik, from zima, winter. There the entire food resources for the winter were kept like meat, vegetables and fruit. The cool temperatures there allowed to keep fresh products for a long time. Other portion of the food would be processed using different culinary technologies and could safely be consumed till spring. In this way the winter diet included almost everything harvested in other seasons. A separate barn would keep grain, corn and millet – for various kinds of bread, banitsa (cheesecake) and gruel, which had a prominent place on the traditional diet. The full-bodied red wine and the chili rakiya brandy were also stored in the cellar. So, the winter eating could become a joyful feast, especially during holidays when the whole spectrum of available food was laid on the table
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In the traditional Bulgarian diets we can come across a few elements from the contemporary rules for a healthy diet. The bread eaten every day was “black”, or wholemeal, while fine white flour was only used for ritual loaves of bread for the holidays. The winter diet gathered almost the entire variety of local cultivated or wild fruit, vegetables, aromatic herbs for spices, and this provided for a rich supply of vitamins and minerals. Part of the fruit and vegetables had been dried in the sun, and this preserved their healthy properties. During winter working bees and special winter rituals, sweet dried fruit were a must, such as apples, plums and pears. Various dried fruit was used to prepare an aromatic compote, called oshaf. Boiled or fresh, fruit were always present in the ordinary and holiday winter diet of Bulgarians.

Dried red peppers are very typical of the Bulgarian diet too. Stuffed with various mixtures – like rice or beans, finely chopped onions plus a myriad aromatic spices, stuffed red peppers are a key element in the Lenten ritual diet, including the menu on Xmas Eve. Let us not neglect the role of garlic and onions in the traditional cuisine and ritual cycle. It was believed they could be successfully used as precaution against mysterious demons or “evil eyes”. And this belief probably corresponds to the proven properties of both garlic and onions against many diseases.

As far as the Lenten diet is concerned we are bound to highlight the variety of leguminous foods such as the haricot and French beans, made in many different ways, lentils and peas. Sauerkraut has a very strong presence in the Bulgarian winter diet too. And we shouldn’t forget to mention different recipes of preparing pumpkin – boiled, baked and used as filling in traditional pastries.

All these products are a must on the Christmas and New Year Eve ritual menu, while the richly laid table is thurified with incense.

There is a contemporary joke that makes fun of the Bulgarian traditional cuisine telling the recipe of haiduk (rebel) beans. When they are finally boiled, the beans are thrown out with the water, simply because the roast lamb should be ready, and it is a much greater temptation. Meat abounds in the Bulgarian winter diet. While in the summer mostly chicken meat was traditionally cooked, the winter months saw roast turkey, duck, goose, wild fowl, and a richness of fish dishes. Especially for Christmas, however, every household was fattening a pig. And the most characteristic holiday recipe was and still is, roast pork with sauerkraut. Also, a great many recipes help to turn major quantities of pork into a series of delicacies – brawn, salami and dried jerked meat. In fact the most lavish holiday recipes suggest a combination of meat of different domestic animals and wild game. This delicacy requires virtuosity and genuine patience for many hours of cooking experience on an open fire and in the typical Bulgarian earthen pots. This added to the dishes a taste unattainable for contemporary cooking equipment. That is why some skilled housewives today are prepared to spend longer hours cooking for the holidays, in a bid to revive the grandeur of the traditional Bulgarian cuisine.

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The traditional Bulgarian winter diet

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