Ingredients of Change: The History and Culture of Food in Modern Bulgaria by Mary C. Neuberger (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Ingredients of Change: The History and Culture of Food in Modern Bulgaria by Mary C. Neuberger Darra Goldstein Neuberger, Mary C. Ingredients of Change: The History and Culture of Food in Modern Bulgaria. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY and London, 2022. x + 231 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Select bibliography. Index. $125.00; $27.95; $18.99 (e-book). Mary C. Neuberger's new book, Ingredients of Change: The History and Culture of Food in Modern Bulgaria, begins with a confession: 'I came to love the Balkans first and foremost via food' (p. 1). In five chapters devoted to foodstuffs that form the basis of the Bulgarian diet (bread, meat, yogurt, tomatoes and peppers, and wine), this deft study explores the interplay of political and social ideologies, theories of nutrition, and economic issues through the lens of food, focusing on the period of Communist rule between 1944 and 1989. As in the Soviet Union, to which Bulgaria's Communist party looked for guidance, the focus was on socalled rational consumption, devised as a scientific counterpoint to traditional patterns of eating that had been, at least for Bulgaria's Christian community, defined by the prescribed feast and fast days of the Orthodox Church. In the years following World War Two, there was great concern about the amount of bread and lack of protein in the typical Bulgarian diet. Thus, the government pushed to increase meat production, a goal that involved both the agricultural and industrial sectors of the economy. This aim had to do not just with improving the nation's health, but also with a vaguer idea of 'progress' defined in terms of Western consumer values. Considering their country's fertile soil and long history of excellent gardening practices, many advocates saw Bulgaria as being especially well poised to enter onto the world economic stage and not be confined to selling produce solely within the Eastern bloc. [End Page 173] But it proved difficult to countervail centuries of ingrained eating habits and to create a national cuisine that would be distinct from the culinary practices that had influenced the Bulgarian kitchen under Ottoman rule. Neuberger explains how the flavourful tomatoes and peppers that Bulgaria is known for today were appropriated for nationalist aims; rather astonishingly, by the 1960s this small country was 'the top source of tomatoes and tomato products in the world' (p. 116). She further documents how the government encouraged a move away from traditional sheep and goat herding to the raising of more economically productive cows and eventually pigs — a striking evolution in a country where pork had been a minor provision due to the large Muslim population. The book usefully discusses the tensions between the Communist Party goal of greater meat eating among the populace and the activism of countercultural movements like the Bialo Bratstvo (White Brotherhood), which espoused vegetarianism and traced its ideas all the way back to Thrace — a convenient parallel narrative for Bulgarian history that looked to Western as opposed to Eastern influences on Bulgarian food culture. With its cogent analysis of the forces that transformed the Bulgarian diet over the course of the twentieth century, Ingredients of Change is an important contribution to the literature on Eastern European foodways. And yet, the promise of the book — the 'color, flavor, and texture' (p. 1) of Bulgarian food introduced at the very beginning — remains unfulfilled. Although we gain a good understanding of certain emblematic Bulgarian ingredients, we are left with little sense of the country's cuisine. Cuisine is far more than simply ingredients: it is a multifaceted concept that embraces the dishes made from various ingredients as well as the techniques used to prepare them; the way the table is laid; the rituals of mealtime; and much more. Cuisine also involves an understanding of taste. Bulgarian yogurt is indeed extraordinary, but here it is presented as simultaneously 'gamy' and possessing a 'delicate bacterial flora and flavor' (p. 87). We learn about the advent of 'pork plenty' (p. 69), but the ways in which pork was used in the kitchen are barely discussed. The Bulgarians are particularly inventive in the art of meat preservation by means of salting and air-drying. The...