Gastronomy in Bulgaria

The gastronomy of Bulgarians has been greatly influenced by the Southeastern Europe including the South Slavic, Turkish, Greek, and the Middle Eastern. Bulgarian cuisine varied significantly due to the country’s geographic features and temperate climate allowing for the growth of a range of vegetables, fruits, and herbs.

Top appetizers are tarator (cold soup made of yogurt, cucumbers, walnuts, dill, and garlic), shkembe chorba (tripe soup), pacha, and Bob chorba (bean soup). Favorite salads and relishes include ovcharska salad, lyutika, lyutenitsa, shopska salad, and snow white salad. The popular main dishes are moussaka (traditionally eggplant-based dish), gyuvetch (beef, onions, red pepper, carrots, eggplants, tomatoes, potatoes), sarmi (rolls with grape or cabbage leaves), drob sarma, kebabche, kavarama, elenski but (dry-cured ham), popara (made of leftover or fresh bread), flat sausages (Babek, Lukanka, Soujouk, and others), and mish-mash.

Bulgarians also love bread, pastries, and sweets. Some of which include banista (whisked eggs, Bulgarian Feta cheese or sirene, filo pastry), pita bread, halva, kadaif, garish cake, baklava, tolumbichki, kompot, kozunak, and kadaif. Traditional drinks in the country are wine, rakia (fruit brandy), mastica (usually mixed with menta to produce a traditional cocktail), menta (sweet mint liquor), beer, boza, and ayran.