Thracian people
In many of the early resources about the way of life and culture of the Thracian people we can find information about their food and way of eating.
The Thracian people knew and used wheat, millet and rye, of which they made huge breads, olives, onion and garlic.
It is known that they’d eaten pork meat and the main food for the Thracians that lived near rivers and lakes was fish. They also had eaten rabbits, boars and other wild animals, which they hunted. Except meat and fish, the Thracians had eaten milk, butter, cheese and honey. Very widespread were drinks called bruton (drink made of barley), as well as a drink called boza, made of millet and some kind of grass called sabaya. The Thracian vineyards and wines were famous in Greece, and it’s not surprising that both, men and women drank wine in huge quantities.
There are some interesting facts about the way of eating of the Thracians. They sat in a circle around a three-legged table, on which they put huge breads, pieces of meat and many vegetables. The bread and the meat were torn into pieces. They ate everything with hands and drank wine from large animal horns.

Slavonic people
The sources about the Slavonic people said that when they moved south of the Danube River, they did farming and cattle raising. They grew millet, crushed it into flour and they made flannel by boiling it, called prosenik as well as some other foods. They were also acquainted with the wheat of which they made bread and mash-like dishes. They also used cabbage, onion, garlic, beans-kidney beans, lentils, broad beans, pears, apples, plums, which they dried or boiled. They also ate, yet not often, fish, sheep, beef and pork meat.

Proto-Bulgarian people
In the life of the Proto-Bulgarians, a very important part played the cattle raising and hunting. Their main foods were meat and milk. They ate wild animals, horse, ox, ram, rabbit, chicken and pork meat-dried or roasted and drank mare, sheep or cow milk.
Under the influence of the Slavonic people in the end of 9th and the beginning of 10th century, farming had spread in the everyday life of the Proto-Bulgarians. Along with the food of animal origin, they ate bread and flour flannels.
Bit by bit the differences between the food of the Slavonic people and the Proto-Bulgarians disappeared and we could say that in 10th century there is already a Bulgarian food. It is a combination of some dishes and products of the Thracian people and the eating habits brought on the Balkan Peninsula by the Slavonic and Proto-Bulgarian people.

In the 19-th and in the beginning of the 20-th century the Bulgarian traditional food was forked on the basis of the food, mentioned in the earlier historical sources… However in its composition comes a definite enrichment due to the penetration of lots of new products, which take a respective place in the Bulgarian national cuisine.
A characteristic way for obtainment with products for cooking… is the self-make production. Every village is surrounded by a garden where people grow vegetables and fruit.
Gathering takes up an important place in the food of the population, especially in the mountain regions. In spring and summer people in the mountains pick up different kinds of grass and to make soups, gruel messes and banitzas. They also collect mushrooms and different kinds of wild fruit. They also dry the fruit up to make of them stewed dried fruit or water them or add vinegar or mustard. After some time the so-called pickles were eaten with bread.
Both in the mountain and flat countries in own farms are bred sheep, pigs and hens for obtainment of meat for consumption.
Fishing like a mean for obtainment with food is practiced by people along the shores of Black and White Sea, the Danube River and near other rivers and lakes. Fish is consumed fresh or salt, often roasted, sometimes on rice, onion or covered with bred dough…
During almost the all period of preparing bread and bread products in mountain areas is used to rye- flour but in valleys- wheaten and corn- flour. If you’d live bread or paste products to be delicious, the flour, of which they’ll be prepared, should be fresh, for grain is milled one time for two or three weeks. Flour is kept in wicker baskets covered with mud or clay. And these baskets are kept in wooden chests with covers or in sacks.
In the first half of the 20-th century, the basic food of Bulgarians was the bread. Younger women in a house kneaded bread every week, but during strenuous field- work, bread was kneaded only one time for two weeks. The dough for bread was kneaded in a long wooden trough often hewed from a whole three-trunk. It was called “kneading trough”, in Bulgarian “nostwee”.
The bread, prepared for daily consumption was always sour. It was kneaded with leaven (left from the previous kneading, a heavy risen dough) or with yeast of hops.
The typical dough product for Bulgarians from both the mountain and plain countries is the pastry- so-called “klin”, “milinka”, ”mlinn”, braised foodstuffs (“kavarma”). It is prepared as a holiday and daily dish- for breakfast or supper of thinly flattened out cooked of wheaten flour sweets, about 10-12 ones. Each of them is spread with sun-flower oil, has cut cheese, wild herbs, cabbage, beet, bumpkin, rice, minced meat… Depending on the filling pasties are called pie; onion sauce; pumpkin-pastry; baklava, etc.
Sometimes for breakfast it is prepared ”panada” or bread- soup. To the middle of the 19-th century the technology of its preparation is the following: in a boiled flour mixture are crumbled pieces of old bread. Rich families put in a “panada” milk and sunflower oil, but poor ones eat it with chopped fine acid cabbage or “turshya” from green potatoes and pepper. By the end of the 19-th century first in cities, and then in villages the “panada’ was made of pieces of dried bread, cheese and oil, poured over with warm milk or water…
The biggest part of mountain people’s food contains of products, derived from sheep milk- butter, cheese, curds and others. Butter for private use is produced by battering milk in handy churns. The consumption of cheese is much bigger than that of butter. Curds is also widely used.
Olive oil, called also tree oil, and susame oil are popular and used in Bulgaria. Olive oil is not produced here, so it is bought from travelling tradesmen. In the XIX century in south and southwest parts of the country sesame and poppy have been grown. Later sunflower has also been grown for the purpose of producing lenten oil or sesame oil, which are used instead of olive oil. In some regions olive oil is produced from turnip seeds. Other fats, used in Bulgarian national cuisine, are bacon, lard and suet.
Depending on the season are consumed various kinds of vegetables. In valleys, in spring are cooked acid soups and thicker dishes from dock-plant, spinach, potatoes, cabbage, onion, broad bears and French bears. In the summer during field work a usual dish on the field and at home are roasted red and green peppers with garlic poured on with vinegar.
From crushed boiled red peppers and garlic is prepared “lutenitza” (a pepper and garlic souse). Almost every day a lunch dish on fields is the “tarator” (kind of cold soup cooked with yogurt, chopped cucumbers, garlic, salt).
In the autumn it’s cooked a dish from boiled pumpkin, with crushed red onion and walnuts. In mountain regions, soups, mixtures and dishes are prepared from wild herbs-sorrel, stinger-nettle, stock, etc. characteristic for the same regions are soups from beet, Jerusalem artichokes, kohlrabies, turnips and potatoes.
The black puddings are dried up, but even then they don’t last very long. That is why people do not produce them in big amounts and they eat black puddings fast.
Sausages are made only from meat, first hammered in, and then cut into very small pieces. Then a lot of spices are added to it.
The sujuks (these are very small pieces of meat, which are put into the bowers of pork. After that the product is dried it is good enough for eating) are made by meat, first of all hammered and after that cut into pieces. Many spices are added to the meat.
During the autumn after threshing- floor, for a holiday and guests, people slaughter chicks, geese and ducks for cooking.
One of the main livelihoods of the population in the mountains in Bulgaria is sheep caring, because of which the milk and the milk products take a very important place in the food of the Bulgarians. But milk is very rarely used for food in fresh condition.
From fish people prepare sour or ordinary soup, they bake it all or cut into pieces, they also fry it in hot oil.
It is also wide- spread the consumption of sour mutton, cow or buffalo milk. Sour milk is received trough curdling or thickening with the help of yeast is added in the boiled cool milk.