site.btaTraditional and Tasty: Southwestern Bulgaria

The BTA English Service is running a series of stories on traditional foods and recipes in the six planning regions of Bulgaria: North Central, South Central, Northeastern, Southeastern, Southwestern and Northwestern. 

In Southwestern Bulgaria, traditional cuisine is richest in the winter period, when people in the past had more time for cooking. Some of the recipes that the local women keep and pass on are related to the winter holidays and especially to Christmas. 

One of the most popular main dishes in the region is the kapama, which is the signature dish of the winter resort towns of Bansko and Razlog. It consists of several types of meat, pork, chicken, veal, sausage, and sauerkraut. The trick to preparing this dish is layering the ingredients, adding spices, pepper, paprika, bay-leaves, and cooking it for at least 4-5 hours in a clay pot sealed with dough. 

The most popular pastry dishes in the region are banitsa [traditional Bulgarian pastry dish made from filo dough and traditionally filled with white cheese], baklava [layered filo dough desert of Turkish origin filled with walnuts and honey/sugar syrup] and tikvenik [a desert that is similar to banitsa but filled with pumpkin and walnuts].

The most popular postni ["vegan"] dishes in the region are based on beans and sauerkraut. A typical vegan dish for the whole of Bulgaria are sarmi [rice and spices wrapped in pickled cabbage leaves] which are served vegen on Christmas eve but after can also be made with minced meat. 

Blagoevgrad region

A typical winter dish for the Blagoevgrad region, especially for the month and eve before Christmas when the Orthodox fast takes place and dishes are required to be vegan, is zelnik, a type of banitsa filled with leeks and walnuts instead of white cheese. On Christmas Day, when Bulgarians break their fast and begin eating meat dishes again, a typical Blagoevgrad dish is oriznik, a variation of the typical kapama made with sauerkraut and pork.

The most characteristic dish for the Logodazh village is banitsa with pork intestines. The banitsa filo dough is rolled, toasted on the stove, and layered on top of each other, with each layer covered in lard and the filling.

A typical dessert for the region is goldelia, prepared from grated pumpkin, fresh milk, butter and a little flour. In addition to the typical for the country baklava, Gotse Delchev and Petrich region serve this syrupy pastry which is left to rise, then baked and covered with syrup. 

Bansko 

Bansko, one of the most popular Bulgarian winter resorts, is famous for the traditional Banska kapama, as mentioned above. This main variation of the dish is only made there because store-bought fresh meat makes it more juicy, while the traditional drier Banska kapama is made with meats dried on the windy ceilings in Bansko. In the past, one of the most popular dishes was beef head with tripe, but nowadays it is rarely prepared. It can still be found in small local pubs in the region, like Buzgite in Yakoruda.

Among the vegan dishes typical for Bansko are raztreseni kostureta ["shaken perch"], well strained freshly boiled beans, which are made in the form of a salad with spices, oil or olive oil and fresh onions. Tseluvarchi is also prepared on Christmas Eve, and consists of pickled beets with spices, which are boiled with garlic juice and red pepper.

A lot of walnuts are used in the Bansko cuisine, as the water in the mountain town is poor in iodine. In the past, almost every yard had a large walnut tree. Roasted walnuts are a main ingredient in baklava and tikvenik.

Belitsa and Yakoruda 

Tseluvachi is also a popular dish in Belitsa, albeit prepared and sometimes named slightly differently. 

Shupla, or "fast banitsa" as the locals call it, is popular in both towns. It is prepared with water, flour, butter, and sometimes spinach. Still widely prepared in the Belitsa area are homemade youfka [dried and crumbled filo dough that is prepared similarly to noodles] and couscous, as well as tarhana [Tiny grain-shaped dough made from milk, eggs and flour, then dried and fermented, which serves as base for porridges and other dishes. It is one of the oldest foods in the world and was used as a way to keep milk and eggs for a long time]. 

During the winter, locals also eat variations of kapama, which in Yakoruda they call zadusheno ("stew"), beans are very popular here in winter, especially bivolitsi with sauerkraut [a salad made with extra large beans and pickled cabbage]. A dish typical for the Yakoruda region is the so-called chekane, which are beans with beets. Along with traditional banitsa, Yakoruda residents also make a sweet banitsa saralia [something between banitsa and baklava made with milk, walnits and cinnamon] and boiled wheat with powdered sugar. 

Kyustendil

Zelnik is also apopular dish in the Kyustendil region, and here it is filled with sauerkraut, or fried leeks, spinach, nettles, leeks and any other greens, depending on the season, or even with stir-fries. In the village of Zhabokrat, Kyustendil region, the Cabbage Festival is held every year, during which local bakers present their skills. 

The mastery of the beautiful Kyustendil zelnik is hidden in the thin filo dough. A mixture of corn and wheat flour is often used in grinding the crusts. After rolling, each crust is left to dry to remove moisture from it. Zelnik preparation is a whole ritual. It takes a lot of time and patience, about 5 hours, but locals are convinced that every minute is worth it. 

Pernik 

Among the most emblematic dishes of the Pernik region are the varivo (boiled sauerkraut with pork, bacon and dried red pepper) and the banitsa in all its variations.

These foods, together with mulled rakia, usually plum or pear spirit, are an invariable menu at almost all winter holidays in Graovo and Kraishte. In the past people in this region used to eat sparrows on Christmas Day. They believed that by consuming a sparrow, they acquired some of its energy and speed in their field work.

A popular winter dish in this region is kachamak with prazhki (boiled polenta with bits of fried bacon). Various types of raw pickled vegetables are also consumed; homemade breads; juice from wild pears or cabbage juice with boiled dry peppers, leeks and garlic. The latter is also known as lean tartor.

One of the popular fried dishes in Pernik is the kavarma with pork, slow cooked meat stew with leeks, dry red long peppers and green pickled tomatoes.

Sofia region

The first detailed data on the typical dishes of Sofia can be found in memoirs such as those of Raina Kostentseva (1885-1967) and Georgi Kanazirski-Verin (1883-1954). They describe the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In her book, Kostentseva said that the favorite dishes of Sofians during those times were beans (both in soup and stew), trahana and home-made yufka .She also mentioned spicy mince meatballs and mince stuffed peppers, which are a stable throughout Bulgaria as a whole.

Kostentseva also wrote that tarator [a popular Bulgarian cold soup with yogurt and cucumbers] was always present in the menu of Sofia residents (very often not with yogurt, but only with water and vinegar); and also the pork pacha [prepared from pig's feet, ears, tails, part of the head with skin, bacon and meat], tripe soup and gardener's soup. A regular winter dish was sauerkraut, sprinkled with finely chopped roasted chili peppers and leeks and drizzled with olive oil.

Among sweets, Kostentseva mentions mafish which in her time was symbolically given to women who had just given birth so that they would have more milk. Mafish today has disappeared from Bulgarian cuisine, but it can be found in Central Europe, and in Prague it is even considered an old Prague delicacy, although there is some evidence that it is of Arab origin. It is a hollow and crispy cylinder of dough, sprinkled on the outside with sugar. It is now often sold filled with chocolate, whipped cream, fruit or ice cream. Kostentseva also writes that oshav [dred fruit], which was eaten with bread, was also popular in Sofia. 

Sofia cuisine at the time was most likely not as much traditional, but a mixture of the cuisines brought over from people from different regions as they moved to the capital.

The most emblematic dish for Sofia is the Shopska salad. It is called "Shopska" because of the grated white cheese on top, resembling the cap of the shopi [people from the villages surrounding Sofia]. This salad has become one of the modern staples of Bulgarian national cuisine. It is prepared from finely chopped tomatoes, roasted or raw peppers, cucumbers, and onions, seasoned with oil and a little vinegar and topped with a layer of grated cheese and finely chopped parsley. Thus, the salad ensemble has the colors of the Bulgarian national flag. 

BTA correspondents Desislava Velkova, Elitsa Ivanova, Milen Milanov and Pepa Vitanova contributed to this story.