1000 Things of Serbia, Romania & Bulgaria

Elena and I have just returned from our usual spring trip-this time we went to three Balkan countries:  Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria. We also brought Adam along with us.  The travels were wonderful-we spent time in Belgrade and Bucharest as well as venturing to smaller cities-Novi Sad in Serbia, and Brasov in Romania. In Bulgaria, we only spent one day in the ancient capital of Veliko Tarnovo where we visited the Tsarevets fortress. 

Elena thinks I came for the food and she is likely correct. There are quite a few foods from the 1000 Things list to try as well as quite a few traditional foods to try even if they aren’t on the list.  So if we start with the 1000 things first:  Beginning with Serbia, we ate shopska which is a traditional salad made of tomatoes, cucumbers and then a heaping mount of a brined white cheese which is a bit like a feta in taste but a shredded cheddar cheese in texture.  The key to this salad is one part veggies and 20 parts cheese.  The cheese has a very low melting point so it becomes really soft and with the onions, olives and peppers mixed into the tomatoes/cucumbers is pretty delicious.  Want to try it? About 1000 recipes exist for it online and I am partial to The Spruce Eats.

They also eat a little sausage they call cevapcici.  This is much like a kebab but the seasonings are very different from those you find in Middle Eastern restaurants.  Paprika, cayenne pepper and garlic are the main seasonings added to the ground meat (lamb, pork and beef).  They also add egg white and baking soda which I do not normally add to a kebab.  So what other things are good but not on the 1000 things list?  There is a joke in Serbia that their favorite type of vegetable is pork and I would agree as they do eat so much meat.  Almost every meal can begin with a meat tray. They eat a million varieties of sausages and a rolled breaded cutlet (Karageorge Schnitzel) that is pork, wrapped with turkey, breaded and fried.  We saw them everywhere. We ate a couple. Not bad as all things deep fried are not bad. 

In Romania they eat a tremendous amount of polenta as a side dish.  The most famous version of this is called mamaliga and has the same melted cheese plus a yogurt/sour cream drizzle and a gently fried egg on top.   Once again, this does not take a huge number of ingredients and all can be found here in the US.  Give The Spruce Eats a try if you want to make it yourself. 

Romania also has a type of soup that is made with turkey, chicken, tripe, etc. that they call a “sour soup” or a ciorba.   The sour element is either lemon juice or vinegar or both and at least for the versions we tried (and we tried several) the sour taste is not too pronounced.  They also have another good soup called ghivetch (veggie soup).  The only real difference with ghivetch and our veggie soup is that they add about every vegetable to it that you can imagine. 

So what in Romania did we eat not on the 1000 things list?  We ate a cabbage rolls which is the most traditional of Romanian dishes. These particular cabbage rolls were made very thin-almost hot dog shaped and filled with both rice and meat. We also ate a type of fry-bread called Langos that was then sprinkled with sour cream and a soft yellow cheese. 

We ate Galuste cu Prune which are a potato dough dumpling filled with a plum, rolled in a browned breadcrumb, sprinkled with powdered sugar.  The good news is that fruit dumplings are on my CNN list of the 30 dumplings you need to try so I checked off another from that list!  Another item is something called Kurtoskalacs or chimney cake which is a sweet dough wrapped around a rolling pin, sprinkled with walnuts and cooked over a fire.  End result is a bit like a cinnamon roll covered in nuts.  Finally, there are cheeses of all shapes and sizes.

In Bulgaria I ate many wonderful things but the main items from the 1000 things book are things you can find in most places:  poppy seeds, sour cream, feta, walnuts and Bulgarian yogurt.  They do eat walnuts in almost every preparation from salad dressings to desserts.  One of my most favorite was katuk which takes walnuts, feta and another of my favorites-Bulgarian yogurt-and mix it together to form a spread for bread.  This does require me to talk about Bulgarian yogurt-which I have now eaten (and drunk) in Bulgaria. In the USA you can buy White Mountain Bulgarian-style yogurt which has long been one of my most favorite things.  It is far tarter than our yogurt and really delicious. In Bulgaria they take their yogurt, add water and salt and drink this for a cure for hangover-this is called Ayran and is not so bad. 

So what is missing from this list?  For one, fruit brandy called rakia in Serbia/Bulgaria and tuica in Romania. This comes in all flavors of fruit with plum the most common. We, ultimately, found the walnut to be the best.  Ajvar is a red pepper puree that can be put on all things.  Want to make this (and you do) then give this recipe from The Spruce Eats a shot.  Finally, red peppers stuffed with feta cheese was one of my favorite Bulgarian treats.  So did I come for the food?  In part, yes, but the locations were beautiful as well.  My favorite? Bulgaria…..