site.btaAcademic Researchers of Bulgarian Food Set Up Society to Study, Collect, Disseminate Knowledge about Bulgarian Culinary History

Seven researchers of Bulgarian food and cooking: historians, anthropologists, culture studies experts, folklorists and sociologists, have set up an academic society called Around the Table to study, collect and disseminate knowledge about Bulgaria's culinary history, cooking traditions and recipes. 

The founders of the society say their work and research is intended for people who not only like to eat food, but also to think about it.

Given that the legacy of culinary literature in Bulgaria remains poorly studied and known, even among professionals, the scholars will source, publish, and make accessible the earliest local writings and publications with cooking instructions for housewives, professional chefs, an everyone involved in the production and preparation of food. 

The society has a website, with an English version https://www.aroundthetable.bg/en, which will serve as a library and a gallery where old cookbooks, archival photos and present-day research articles will be accessible to everyone who wants to learn about how the Bulgarians cook, eat and think about food. 

With whom we share out kitchen space, how we celebrate with food, where the cooking recipes come from and where they go, how we dream about food and throw food to the waste, are some of the topics the scholars intend to cover in their research, given that food and eating are universal social phenomena. 

The founders of the society note that for most people, eating is the soft centre of living, a sweet point of the daily humdrum, and an apotheosis of the feast while for the seven scholars food is a blissful part of their work. 
The electronic library of the society already has scanned copies in Bulgarian of cookbooks from 1870, 1891, 1895, a household manual for girls schools from 1900, a book on food canning from 1901, and a collection of 1,200 French recipes translated into Bulgarian, also published in 1901. 

The seven founders of the society are Albena Shkodrova, who chairs it, Vihra Barova, Raina Gavrilova, Velislava Petrova, Elitsa Stoilova, Nikolay Vukov and Tina Peneva.

Anyone who wants to share their own archives and memories related to Bulgarian food can contact the society via its website.