Bulgaria ~ Cuisine

So I’ve had a bit of time now to assimilate back into Western culture i.e. sleep, eat, and not think about impending exams – and some of the things that keep on taunting my mind are the memories of the foods that I experienced. Good food at exploitatively dirt cheap prices, so much so that for a short while, I actually thought that I’d died and gone to a little heaven of my own. However, my la-la-land was not to last – sadly, the thud that brought me back to Earth was the sound of my empty wallet.

That’s right. I ate so much that I ran out of money.

After all, if a main dish costs £3-4, then how could you not order four more?

I’d ramble on for a little longer, but some of you *cough* Ting *cough* have said that my blog entries are waaay too long, so I’ll just talk a little bit about Bulgarian food in general, and tantalise you all with my food memories in pictorial form. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words.

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From what I’ve gathered, Bulgarian food is incredibly diverse – amongst the many cuisines available, you’ll be able to find Greek, Turkish and Italian, which definitely makes for a lot of choice. We would be walking through a town and be able to buy kebab, pizza or even Subway whilst on the move; however, I wasn’t there for fast food, so we spent most of our meals in the restaurants.

Things I found common to most menus are: soups, salads and clay pots.

At the first restaurant that Ting took me to, nothing I ordered could compare with the epicness of the soup that she picked:


Soup in a bread bun!

There is always a huge array of salads, much more than we’d get in England. It’s not as common to have leafy salads over there, as they just don’t really grow rocket or lettuce or anything fancy like that. Expect grilled peppers (yummy), tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, potatoes, olives…and occasionally, some leaves.

A salad that I really grew to like is Shepherd’s Salad, which is a concoction of tomatoes, cucumber, onions, chillies, egg, ham and mushrooms:


Om nom nom!

Dishes that are typically Bulgarian include a selection of meats wrapped in bacon and topped with cheese (need to ask Ting what this is called); clay pots filled with chicken, chilli peppers, onions, mushrooms and tomato sauce; and various meats with short-grain rice. Cheese is very well loved over there - if you are not a cheese-lover then beware!


I live to eat...

So much food! And yet we finished it all...



For dessert, yoghurt is a great speciality of Bulgaria. Yoghurt, you think? Like the stuff you get in pots? Yes, but better. Their natural yoghurt has got to be some of the best yoghurt I have ever tried. There was one restaurant in Koprivshitsa which served us a yoghurt so thick that it looked like ice cream. We had blueberries or strawberries with ours, and the combination was so good that no matter how full we were, we always made room for dessert! :)

Another dessert that we tried was pancakes, but that's more standard fare so not quite as exciting.

All in all, a wonderful culinary experience - I am definitely looking forward to trying to make some of the dishes that I tried!