Historical facts about Bulgarian yoghurt

There are many legends about the Bulgarian yoghurt which became popular worldwide with its unique qualities in the beginning of the 20th century. There are many curious facts about its history.

The word yoghurt in the Western European languages emerged a century ago as Bulgarian yoghurt in the beginning. The popularity of the miraculous food product is due to a young Bulgarian scientist from the University in Geneva who worked at the bacteriology department. In 1905 he discovered what made the fresh milk into yogurt- a combination of rod-like and ball-shaped bacteria. This bacteria was separated from a home-made sheep yoghurt in Bulgaria. In fact, the scientific publication on this issue of the future Professor Stamen Grigorov in the Swiss magazine Revue medicale de la Suisse Romande did not use the word yoghurt. The scientist used the term fermented milk which was given the Bulgarian name sour milk.

The discovery of Bulgarian Stamen Grigorov made huge impression to the Russian scientist and future Nobel Prize laureate Ilya Mechnikov who was a deputy director of the Louis Pasteur Institute in Paris and was very interested in topics regarding longevity. He thought that death was nothing but a bad disease which could be healed as any other illnesses. He came to the conclusion that the main reason for the death of the human body was the decay processes in the human stomach which slowly poison the body. After he made detailed analysis of the bacteria in question which later received the name Bacillus Bulgaricus the Russian scientist found that this bacteria had the ability to kill the bad microorganisms in the human intestines, thus giving power to the human body. He found more evidence about the good qualities of the bacteria in statistical data regarding the number of centenarians in various countries. The ranking was at that time topped by Bulgaria where yoghurt was the main food from time immemorial.

Ever since then, the long debate about whether yoghurt was invented by the Bulgarians or it was merely a variety of this dairy product started. There are several interesting versions regarding this argument. One of them claims that the proto-Bulgarians who came to Europe from Asia were used to drinking sour horse milk. Later, when the Bulgarians settled on these lands they started to consume fermented sheep milk and slowly turned this milk into thick sheep yoghurt. According to some historians, our ancestors called it katak. It is interesting to know that such word is used currently in China in the northwest region of Xinjiang. There are millions of historical versions about the word yoghurt itself. Here is one of the Bulgarian versions: according to this version, the consumption of yoghurt in the Ottoman Empire was introduced by the Bulgarians. In 1345 the Bulgarians living in Thrace were attacked by the Seljuk Turks who took with themselves to the Middle East huge herds of sheep and many Bulgarian captives. The Turkish invasions continued over the next 50 years. The Bulgarian captives used to make yoghurt from sheep milk which was their only food. Until that time the Turks did not consume milk at all. They learned to eat yoghurt from the Bulgarian prisoners-in –war, claims Doctor K.Popdimitrov. They called it Yaurt which has nothing to do with the words milk or food. It probably originated from the term Gyaur (infidel). This is how the Turks used to call the Bulgarian people. In fact, most historians claim that dairy farms in the city of Istanbul from the 19th century until the First Balkan War (1912-1913) belonged mainly to Bulgarians. These milkmen who initially made the yoghurt for the Bulgarian community gradually made it popular amongst the Turkish population.

The yoghurt appeared in Western Europe from the Ottoman Empire first as a medicine. The French King Francois 1 (1515-1547) who brought the Renaissance in France was suffering from an incurable stomach disease. His ally the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent sent him a healer who went there with a herd of 40 sheep. Soon after that, the consumption of this elixir became very popular in the whole King’s yard. However, the ottoman healer kept in secret the recipe for this yoghurt. Later the sheep died as they could not survive the cold winter in France. Thus, the product was forgotten until modern times.

Until the mid 20th century yoghurt was sold in France and other Western European countries only in the pharmacies as medicine against stomach diseases. It is interesting to know that enterprising immigrants from the Balkans and Ukraine taught the French people to use yoghurt as food. One of them was Petar Gorgachev who now lives in Paris.

In the beginning French people did not like the taste of this product as they though that it was purely fermented milk and wondered why they should pay for spoilt milk, Petar Gorgachev’s wife Mrs. Elena Gorgacheva recalls. However, the good nutritive qualities of the yoghurt helped it position well on the market. In the 1950’s the French authorities even obliged the kindergartens and the schools in the country to include it in their food menus. Thus, the industrial production of yoghurt emerged in France which is currently one of the biggest yogurt manufacturers worldwide. However, the local yogurt has nothing to do with the Bulgarian sour milk and its specific bacteria. To assure yourself of that you can leave a pack of such yoghurt for 3 months in the fridge and you will find out hat the yoghurt will be still suitable for consumption, because of the lack of the so-called sour bacteria existing in the real Bulgarian sour milk (kiselo mlyako).
Two years ago a huge statue of the founder of the sour bacteria Professor Stamen Grigorov was unveiled in Bulgaria. Grigorov was a genius scientist and great patriot as well. When he made the discovery of the bacteria in France he was invited to head a department at the Louis Pasteur Institute in Paris. However, the 27 year old Bulgarian chose to return to Bulgaria where he became the director of the hospital in his native town of Tran. Professor Stamenov was awarded with the Golden Military Red Cross and the Bravery Order. In the 1930’s he was invited to work in Milan (Italy) where he successfully applied his vaccine against tuberculosis. When the great Bulgarian scientist died in 1945 just before turning 70, all radio stations in Europe spread the bad news about his death.

English version: Kostadin Atanasov

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Historical facts about Bulgarian yoghurt

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