Shkodrova , Albena Rebellious Cooks and Recipe Writing in Communist Bulgaria (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 787 Shkodrova, Albena. Rebellious Cooks and Recipe Writing in Communist Bulgaria. Food in Modern History: Traditions and Innovations. Bloomsbury Academic, London, New York and Dublin, 2021. x + 188 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. £85.00. As a student in the Soviet Union in the 1970s, the appearance of bottled fruit juices from Bulgaria was always a source of excitement for me. These juices were thick with pulp, rich in vitamins, and excellent in flavour. Quaffing quince or apricot juice in the midst of a Moscow winter evoked sunny climes, and Bulgaria itself represented the kind of abundance that Soviet citizens of that era could only dream of. So it was with particular interest that I turned to Albena Shkodrova’s Rebellious Cooks and Recipe Writing in Communist Bulgaria, to learn how Bulgarians viewed this perceived bounty from within. Because Bulgaria exported a large percentage of its manufactured foods, the country suffered from shortages, if to a lesser degree than the USSR. Against this backdrop, Shkodrova’s monograph examines the meaning of home cooking under Communist rule in Bulgaria. Using as the basis for her analysis interviews and twenty ‘scrapbooks’ — personal recipe collections compiled before 1989 — she explores the tension between the informants’ individual desire to feed their family well and their wish for relief from relentless labour. Women were expected to participate in society by working outside of the home; but, as elsewhere, they were also expected to cook, clean, shop and manage childcare. As a result of her interviews, Shkodrova argues for a nuanced view of Bulgarian women’s attitudes toward home cooking, demonstrating that they are not simply reflexive. Because the government failed to provide adequate access to foodstuffs even as it published cookbooks with unrealistic recipes, many Bulgarian women reverted to pre-Communist practices in order to cope with the demands of urban everyday life. Shkodrova shows how the Communist state’s aggressive promotion of public canteens to free women from daily cooking ended up serving the opposite purpose, heightening women’s desire to express their individuality and creativity by exchanging recipes and engaging in home cooking. Shkodrova sees their behaviour as acts of micro-resistance. The notion of a Bulgarian national cuisine arose belatedly, only in the 1930s, a decade that saw a ‘golden age’ of cookbook publishing (p. 17) before the establishment of the Communist state, which sought to replace home cooking with public catering. The cookbooks published in the mid 1950s, after the immediate deprivations of World War Two, promoted nutritionism over deliciousness, emphasizing ‘scientific methods’ (p. 23) that rationalized taste as a ‘prerequisite for digestion’ (p. 24), with cooking merely serving as the first phase of the digestive process. These books were written by nutritionists rather than actual cooks and were largely unappealing. Furthermore, they did not SEER, 99, 4, OCTOBER 2021 788 attempt to help consumers creatively negotiate the food shortages that plagued the economy. By contrast, the widespread practice of sharing recipes acknowledged the deficiencies of the planned economy and the significant amount of time involved in procuring food. The shared recipes also served other important purposes. They enabled women to participate actively in public life through their exchange and constituted ‘a shared body of culture’ (p. 53) that ensured the continuation and at times the renewal of culinary traditions. The recipes also enabled a certain freedom that allowed women not only to choose what to prepare for a meal, but importantly served as an outlet for individual expression. The scrapbooks reflected a woman’s personal taste, and often her thoughts, as evidenced by the numerous marginal notes. The kitchen itself became a ‘space of autonomy’ (p. 130) where women were able to indulge in sensory and intellectual pleasures not otherwise readily available. Shkodrova asserts that contrary to the official rhetoric, cooking for many women came to be seen as a privilege. In questioning whether the sharing of recipes constituted actual defiance, or at the very least resistance, she untangles the complex relationships between the individual and the various manifestations of officialdom. Her belief that the women’s behaviour in compiling the scrapbooks is ultimately subversive runs counter to current trends in post-Soviet scholarship, and at times she is...