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Panayot Volov PrimarySchool, Varna, Bulgaria

What do What do Bulgarians eat at Bulgarians eat at

Christmas?Christmas?

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.

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.

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.

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Here are the ingredients:

1 kg of flour a cube of yeast, match-box sized 1/2 teaspoonful of sugar 1 teaspoon of salt 1 spoonful of sunflower oil

Sift the flour twice and make a 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.

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

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

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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.

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.

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

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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.

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.

The next day 25th of December is time for the rich Christmas dinner with lots of meat dishes

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and presents.

Have a lot of happiness and health during the New Year