Bulgarians celebrate Christmas from December 20th to the 26th. On Christmas Eve, they have a vegan meal and break their fast. An important dish is Christmas bread with a coin inside for good fortune. Traditional foods include stuffed peppers and cabbage, beans, rice, boiled wheat with walnuts and sugar, and baked pumpkin. On Christmas Eve, groups of young men called Koledari sing carols from house to house in traditional costumes. The next day is a rich Christmas dinner with meat dishes and presents.

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Panayot Volov PrimarySchool,
Varna, Bulgaria

2. What do
Bulgarians eat at
Christmas?

3. The Christmas holiday in Bulgaria starts off from 20
December and extends up to the 26th of the month.
Celebrating Christ's birth, it is also dedicated to the
sanctity of Bulgarian family life and homes.
We mark Christmas on December 25 after a 40-day
Advent fast of no animal products, cheese, butter, eggs
and milk.

4. Christmas Eve is the last day of the fast
and therefore it is celebrated with a
vegan meal that usually consists of an
odd number of dishes, most often seven
or nine.

5. The most important dish is the Christmas bread.
Bulgarians would usually prepare a round loaf in
which they would put a silver coin. It is commonly
believed that the person who finds the coin will be
rewarded with good fortune in the coming year.
!

6. Here are the ingredients:
1 kg of flour〉
a cube of yeast, match-box sized〉
1/2 teaspoonful of sugar〉
1 teaspoon of salt〉 Sift the flour twice and make a
1 spoonful of sunflower oil〉 small “well” in it. Put there the
yeast, dissolved in a small
quantity of water and the sugar.
Add the salt and make dough.
You can form small rolls or put
the dough directly in a thinly
buttered tin. Bake it till it turns
lightly red, then spread sugared
water on it and bake for another
ten minutes.

7. The Christmas meal also includes beans, stuffed
peppers, rice wrapped in vine or cabbage leaves,
boiled corn, leek pastry, honey and walnuts, boiled
wheat with sugar, baked pumpkin

8. Our next recipe is for stuffed cabbage leaves. This is
what you need to make them:
10-15 pickled cabbage leaves
4 onions salt〉
1 coffee cupful of rice〉
2 red tomatoes - fresh or preserved〉
1 teaspoonful of ground savoury〉
1 teaspoonful of ground pepper〉
1 spoonful of parsley〉
!
2 dried red peppers〉
2 fresh red peppers〉
1 carrot〉
1 1/2 coffee cups of sunflower oil〉
Chop up the onions, fresh peppers and carrot. Salt to suit your taste and
brown the mixture in the sunflower oil. When the onion grows soft add the
rice. Peel and grate the tomatoes and then add them to the rice together with
the pepper, savoury and minced parsley. Mix these products thoroughly. Fill
the cabbage leaves with the mixture and wrap them tightly. Insert the dried
red peppers, which have to be steeped in advance for 6 hours in cold water .

9. An indispensable dish on our Christmas table is the
boiled wheat. To cook it, you need the following:
Ingredients:
2 teacupfuls of pounded wheat〉
3 coffee-cupfuls of sugar〉
2 coffee-cupfuls of ground walnut kernels〉
Remove any impurities from
the wheat and wash it. Pour
cold water to cover it and boil
till it grows soft. Then cover
the pot with a towel and let it
swell. Drain the rest of the
water. Mix the wheat with the
sugar and the walnuts.

10. Finally, we're going to offer you a very easy-to-make
pumpkin dissert. The pumpkin is a favourite vegetable
during the Christmas holidays and it appears in
various foods. To make the dissert you need just a few
things
a 2-kg. pumpkin〉
1 1/2 teacupfuls of powdered sugar〉
a handful of walnuts〉 Cut the pumpkin in two
halves. Remove the seeds
! and the fibrous tissue and
put it in a baking tin. Bake
in the oven at moderate
temperature and don't
open the oven before the
pumpkin gets ready. If
served warm, sprinkle the
pumpkin with granulated
sugar; if cool, use soft
sugar alone. Sprinkle the
walnuts on top.

11. An old Bulgarian tradition at midnight
Koledari, or Christmas carolers,
go from house to house
through villages. These groups
of carolers are typically made
up of young men dressed in
traditional costumes which vary
from region to region. Some
preparation goes into the
koledari's performances, which
begin at midnight on Christmas
Eve. This tradition is said to
protect against evil spirits. The
koledari are rewarded with food
in return for their services.

12. The next day 25th of
December is time for
the rich Christmas
dinner with lots of
meat dishes
!
and presents.

13. Have a lot of happiness and
health during the New Year