site.btaTraditional and Tasty: South Central Bulgaria

Kardzhali Region

The traditional dishes of the Kardzhali region are also typical for other parts of Bulgaria because of the lack of indigenous people there, the Regional History Museum told BTA. Some traditional ritual foods there are common for both Christians and Muslims - such as the tarhana or tarhana in Turkish.

The elderly people say that in certain areas of the region the so-called wet tarhana is typical. Its preparation technique is the same as the other one, but the dough is stored in jars with more salt instead of being dried and rubbed. Typical for the Muslims in the region is also the bathed banitsa – the traditional Bulgarian pastry dish banitsa, called "bathed" because of the specific way it is prepared. Apart from being rolled, the pastry sheets used for the making of the banitsa are dipped in hot and cold water. Some also put meat in it, which is not typical of the traditional banitsa.

Typical Bulgarian and popular dishes in the Kardzhali region are the Thracian wedge with cheese and rice, and the Bulgarian sweet pumpkin pie tikvenik also called pumpkin banitsa, prepared with boiled pumpkin, walnuts and cinnamon.

Pazardzhik Region – the village of Radilovo

The people of the village of Radilovo have preserved for generations the recipe of a dish that is believed to have magical properties. Locals call it keshkek and it is a type of porridge, prepared with the so-called "silent" water. The dish is believed to be beneficial for women's fertility, Marena Vachkova from the local community centre told BTA. 

The local cultural institution organizes a National Festival of Keshkek and Traditional Crafts in September, which has become a tradition over the years.

The "silent" water, which is obligatory for the making of keshkek, is poured early in the morning from a forest spring. On the way there and back, the woman carrying it must not say a word. Even if she meets someone, she must not greet him. Because of this, according to the legend, women went for water at night.

In Radilovo there is a legend about keshkek, which tells how in ancient times women stopped conceiving or gave stillbirth. When there were only a few women of childbearing age left in the village, one of them had a dream in which the Thracian goddess of fertility, the moon and hunt, Bendis, promised to help them. When the children were born, the mothers had to prepare keshkek and hand it to everyone in the village. The goddess ordered them to gather the best grain of wheat, grind it between large stones and then wash it nine times. A pregnant bride was to bring "silent" water and boil it in a large pot, then add the ground wheat, and stir while dedicating the meal to the goddess. When the child grows up, before their wedding they are to prepare keshkek again and dedicate it to the health of their family and their future children.

After the women had fulfilled Bendis' wish, the first live and healthy babies were born. Thus, the keshkek porridge became a symbol of new life.

The dish is served sprinkled with sugar or cheese.

In Radilovo it is a tradition before every wedding and after every birth to prepare and hand out keshkek. 

Another dish typical for the village is the kukul – a Christmas bread, but what is specific in this case is that the dough is kneaded separately, and an unbeaten raw egg is put into it before it is baked. The kukuls are distributed to the carol singers, who in Radilovo go door-to-door immediately after dinner on December 24.

Plovdiv Region 

Until the 1940s, the Bulgarians' diet mainly consisted of porridges and cereals with rye, wheat and corn flour, said Grozdelina Georgieva, from the Ethnographic Museum in Plovdiv. Porridges were made with all kinds of greens, pickled vegetables, cheese and curd. Particularly popular plants, which today we consider weeds, are increasingly entering the healthy cuisine.

In the late 19th and early 20th century, sauerkraut was widely used. Many dishes with different names were made with it around the country. In the Plovdiv region, typical are the Stanimashki sarmas - very small, made only with minced meat and rice. 

Bread is a ritual food for Bulgarians and is present at every table. In the past, bread was mainly made from spelt and rye, which were common in the Rhodope Mountains. 

Tatli is a walnut banitsa typical of the plain regions. It is covered with hot fat - oil, charlan (cold pressed sunflower oil), olive oil during a fast, or melted butter. The pacha (cold meat morsels) is a ritual food for St. Basil's Day, made of pork head, feet and ears, for prosperity for the new year.

In the region of Sredna gora, the meal kapama consists of rabbit, venison, and boar. They were boiled with salo, lots of onions, spices were put into the pot, which was put to cook in embers.

The typical Bulgarian cold soup made of diluted yogurt and cucumbers – tarator, was called zhabunyak in the past. The milk was added later. Water, vinegar, salt, crushed garlic, walnuts, jicama or green melons, and later cucumber were added. The dish was preferred when working in the fields. Bulgarians were terribly practical with food and were careful not to strain the body in the fields in order to endure work but also to be nourished, the ethnologist explained. First, they replaced the water with buttermilk and then with yoghurt.

Rhodope Mountains 

The main ingredient of the culinary masterpiece of the Rhodopes - patatnik, are potatoes. The name of the dish reveals the Greek influence in the Rhodope dialect.

The patatnik is an entirely Rhodope culinary creation, says Snezhana Orlova, a member of the professional Chef's Club in Smolyan. After potatoes arrived in the Rhodopes at the end of the 19th century, people in the mountains gradually included them in their menu, Orlova explains. The recipe for patatnik, emerged as a culinary improvisation, replacing the gulia (ground apple) used until then as the main ingredient in a type of banitsa. 

The original recipe for patatnik includes coarsely grated raw potatoes, onions, seasoned with salt and a type of mint. The mixture is baked between 1 or 2 pieces of phyllo dough, and the cooking fat must be butter.

Haskovo Region

The dairy speciality katak and the local puska are the culinary emblems of the Haskovo region. 

The original katak is made for only two weeks a year, between August 15 and 30, when grazing is less and the sheep's milk thickens to 12-14% fat.

This milk is boiled in a water bath until it becomes even thicker, it is salted and filled into jars. If cheese is added to it, the mixture is now called krokmach. Because of the lack of preservatives, it lasts at most half a year in the containers, and it goes bad after 2-3 days when opened.

Puska is prepared in a small geographic region from the eastern villages of Haskovo. The dish is a dried pig's bladder stuffed with pork chopped up to five centimetres in diameter. It is the saltiest meat product in the world, as 35-40 grams of salt per kilo are added when filling the bladder. Other seasonings are a little pepper, cumin and possibly sweet paprika.

Puska is not a typical commercial product, as drying in a cool and ventilated place lasts up to three months. Traditionally, the finished product of the pig slaughtered at Christmas is eaten during harvest season.