Bulgaria is a country that has unique eating habits. There is such a big variety that you can find everything you are looking for. This variety was made because many habits of different nations had passed through Bulgaria during the years (about 30 nations), which affected on the development on our eating habits. Passing through different countries the migrating tribes took some foods and their names from the local people and brought them here. This way, for example came the Chinese tea, the Mexican chocolate and cacao, the Indian black paper and many more.

It's known that Greece and Turkish culture had had a great affect on Bulgarian eating habits, because of their contact with our nation. From the Turkish kitchen we have taken the meals that consist much fat, the sharp meals, the kebab, the hotchpotch, the heavy sweet desserts such as baklava, locum, halva, kadaif and so on. Probably we also have taken from Turkey the meals tarator and sarmi. It's hard to determine which foods and meals we have taken from our south neighbor -Greece. As a hot country Greece has south fruits-lemons, nars, chestnuts, olives, etc. that appeared in the Bulgarian kitchen. It's possible, however, some of them to had come from Turkey. After the Turkish slavery, big influence on our kitchen had caused France. A big part of the cooks in the castles and the bigger restaurants here were Frenchman. Their helpers were Bulgarian, who learnt the way the food is cooked and spread it all over the country. For the French influence in our kitchen prove also the names and terms that are still used-menu, dessert, garniture (dressing), soup, souse, soufflé and so on. Under the influence of the English culture came beefsteak, stake, pie, cake, ham and eggs, etc. Also from the English kitchen came the sandwiches and the cocktails. As a heritage from the Italian national kitchen we have some names of foods and meals such as salami (from "salame"-salt meat), saltza ("salsa"-salt liquid), sarfalat ("cervelata"-a kind of sausage made of pork meat), salad (“insalata"-put salt in). From Italian also come the names of canella, torte, kartoffi (potatoes), and spaghetti. As a mirror of the German influence to our kitchen came the names of leberkez, shnicel, ham, glazura. The Russian influence started before the Emancipation. At the beginning it comes with the Bulgarian emigration in the country of Russia, later on -with the emancipation army from Russia. Russian kitchen gave to Bulgarian the mustard, borsch (a kind of red soup made of beetroot), black roe, etc.

Someone may decide that the Bulgarian kitchen is just a mix of some others, but there can’t be a mix without a base. The base is the original Bulgarian national kitchen, like it was in the past. In the past people didn’t prepare so much the food. The Bulgarian hardworking men preferred fresh vegetables and fruits. A very important thing in Bulgarian kitchen is bread. There might be nothing else, but the simple man would have been very happy if there was enough bread. As we know from different historical and literature sources the usual meal of the village man was homemade bread with salt or white cheese. For special occasions different bread were made. This shows the importance of this kind of food.  The Bulgarian people used to be farmers and they grew many kings of plants that give food-many different vegetables and fruits. It was normal to have tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage, onion, apples, peach and many, many others. In the winter when there weren’t fresh vegetables people ate more meat from the cattle and stewed fruits.

An influence on our meals also had the different religions. Bulgaria is well known all around the world with the hospitality of the Bulgarian people. This is because of the fact that Bulgaria was situated on an important crossroad in the Balkans. Many people had to go through Bulgaria to reach any other place. Some foreigners settled down here, some only passed through. As the years went by the Bulgarians got used to the fact that they meet many different people from different nations. The people in Bulgaria had no other chance but to accept the newcomers. By accepting the new people the Bulgarians developed in them the feature of hospitality. This feature helped them to survive in centuries of slavery-they accepted the foreigners and didn't disturb their development and in the same time they were able to save the national spirit in themselves. It's not a secret that Bulgaria was under slavery of the Turkish for pretty long time. That's the reason why there are so many Turkish people here.

There are still villages where together live Bulgarians and Turkish people-Christians and Muslims. The Muslim were accepted many years ago and they still live there, keeping their religion and personality. It's the same with the Christians there-they have lived there happily for years. For this people the food, which is cooked for the different celebrations in the two religions, is one of the things that unite them. There are still Christians who treat the Muslim people for the Christian feasts and on the other hand the Muslim people treat the Christians, because of the Islam feasts.