3 Weeks in Bulgaria

The VMV Supermarket chain advertising their
great selection of fresh Bulgarian fruits and vegetables

Having my family in Finland and Bulgaria means that I visit these two countries every summer. This time around I noticed new aspects about Bulgarian cuisine and eating style that may not be so clearly visible for those that don’t know any locals or the language.

Firstly, I was happy to see that many grocery store chains have started using the freshness of their produce as a marketing trick – Lidl (a German chain) even boasts that they are the only store to employ a freshness manager to make sure they carry the freshest fruits and vegetables possible. I would love to see something like this in the U.S.!

  

A different take on Caprese salad with cucumber puree
- delicious!

On a more worrying note, I noticed that people in Bulgaria use a lot of salt. To begin with, food products, especially cheese, tend to echo this trend by being very salty. Salt is also often heavily added to finished dishes both at home and in a restaurant – often without first tasting them. I personally had no need to add salt to any of my meals and on the other hand, when I cooked something, it wasn’t salty enough to others. The problem is that people are so used to eating high amounts of salt that upon trying to reduce it, the food doesn’t taste as good, which makes improvement difficult. Also, as learned during my spring semester at Berkeley, high salt intake tends to increase the craving for salt forming a classic vicious cycle.

  

Self-picked

Observing this high salt intake, I wanted to find out whether it has an effect on Bulgarian national health. Not surprisingly, when it comes to deaths due to hypertension (in which salt is a factor), Bulgaria had the third highest rate in Europe in 2011(1). Even though Bulgarians have also healthy eating habits, such as having salad as an appetizer at lunch and dinner, this doesn’t seem to be enough to counteract the effects of salt. Of course, salt is always added to salad, too. Tomato and cucumber are by far the most popular vegetables and in my opinion, Bulgarians could benefit from adding variety to their raw vegetable intake. However, I’ve seen many people eat very few vegetables and not just in Bulgaria, so having the same or almost the same vegetables every day is better than having no veggies at all.

  

Grandma's cherries

Interestingly, however, most people that have a yard grow their own produce and not just tomatoes and cucumbers: thus, there is a great potential for increasing variety. My husband’s grandmother, for example, grows also strawberries, lettuce, carrots, beans, plums, cherries and corn among others. For pensioners, growing some vegetables doesn’t only provide fresh food, but it also is a good way to reduce food costs as pensions are very small. Some even produce honey for sale to add to their meager monthly incomes. Unfortunately, pesticides are widely used even on these backyard gardens, as according to many gardeners, there wouldn’t be much produce left for consumption without them. I didn’t find out what is used, but I hope that there is not much residue left when it is time to do harvest.

Cauliflower bake

During this year’s trip, I noticed also that foraging is pretty common here, most popular items being plants that can be dried for tea or other ways used for making different kinds of drinks and syrups. Mashterka, for instance, is a tiny purple flower, which turns into a delicious herbal tea! I had the opportunity to pick some, as we came across it on one of our trips to see ancient ruins. By the way, there are plenty of archeological attractions to see here – this country has roots that go deep!

  

I hope you have enjoyed my post. See you next time!

Anna-Kaisa

Sources:

      (1)  Hypertension. World Health Rankings 2011 http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/hypertension/by-country/ 20 June 2015