Bulgarian Rhapsody:
The Best of Balkan Cuisine
Linda Joyce Forristal
Washington, D.C:
Sunrise Pine Press, 1998
152 pp., List Price: $14.95
20% Discount for Web Purchases
Web Price: $12.00 + S&H
Always one for adventure, I decided to visit Bulgaria, a small Balkan country the size of Tennessee, in the fall of 1990. That was the year Bulgaria started on the path toward democracy, after enduring 45 years of communist rule. It was also the first year that Americans could travel to Bulgaria without a visa.
Upon arriving in Bulgaria on October 1st I traveled to Ruse, a picturesque city on the Danube River. Since foodstuffs were still difficult to get in 1990 and the quality of restaurant food was undependable, most Bulgarians ate at home. Luckily I was befriended by many Bulgarians who felt it part of their national duty to keep me well fed and who didn't mind my scribbling down notes as they cooked up their national dishes (usually from memory) in their small kitchens.
I remember well the first time my friend Tatyana Markova made her savory peppers stuffed with just the right amount of meat, rice, and spices. I asked her to make them again so I could watch and write down the recipe. That was the casual beginning of seven years of food research that has now blossomed into Bulgarian Rhapsody: The Best of Balkan Cuisine.
The trademarks of Bulgarian cuisine, like those of its Mediterranean cousins, are slow cooking and use of fresh vegetables. Its wonderful pastries have been influenced by the nearby Austro-Hungarians. Also, having endured 500 years under the yoke of the Ottoman Empire, Bulgarian cooks inherited the best of Turkish influences.
Though our fast-paced lives have forced many of us to abandon the kitchen and nutritious home cooking in the process, I encourage you to experiment with Bulgarian cuisine. It's an exciting way to get back into the kitchen and at the same time bring delicious good to your family's table.
To order, send a check or money order in U.S. dollars made payable to Mother Linda's for $14.00 for US customers or $15.00 for Canadian customers (which includes S& H ) to: Mother Linda's, P.O. Box 7, Bladensburg, MD 20710.