If you ask our taste buds excellent Bulgarian food is one of the best reasons to visit the country. In Bulgaria you can still get abundance of fresh vegetables and quality meat. It seems that mass-produced, tasteless food has not yet become the norm. Especially in smaller towns and villages the locals still eat and sell vegetables and meat produced at their own small-scale farms.
Bulgarian cuisine is characterised by lots of meat (mostly lamb), garlic, onion and spices. It is heavily influenced by Turkish and Greek cuisines, thus menus in Bulgarian restaurants often contain sarmi (minced meat and rice wrapped into vine leaves), musaka and baklava.
Good news for vegetarians are excellent Bulgarian salads. Bulgarians tend to eat a salad as a starter (and they often wash it down with rakia, a very strong spirit made of plums), but the portions are generally large so you can eat a salad as a light meal itself. Some of the favourite Bulgarian salads include:
- shopska salad (sliced tomatoes, cucumber,
onion and peppers with white Bulgarian cheese)
- snezhanka (thick yogurt with sliced cucumbers,
walnuts and garlic)
- chopulo (grilled eggplant, peppers, a lot
of garlic and parsley)
Bulgarians like soups as well. Some of the most well-known include:
- bob chorba (traditional bean soup with lots
of herbs)
- shkembe chorba (tripe soup with garlic, vinegar
and chillies)
- tarator (cold soup with yogurt and cucumbers,
very refreshing during summer)
Apart from lamb (agnechko), which is most frequently roasted, you can easily get other kinds of meat in Bulgaria as well, such as pork (svinsko), veal (telechko) and chicken (pile). The meats are grilled, fried or stewed. Most common Bulgarian meat dishes include:
- kavarma (stewed meat and vegetables)
- dzhuvech (stewed lamb with vegetables)
- chufteta (spicy meat balls)
- kebapcheta (grilled spicy minced meat in a
shape of sausages)
Travellers to Bulgaria will appreciate the fact that all towns are dotted with small kiosks or stalls selling various snacks (zakuska). You can satisfy your hunger practically anywhere with the following:
- banitsa (fillo dough filled with white cheese)
- kifla (croissant, usually filled with jam)
- piroshka (fried dough stick filled with white
cheese)