🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Bulgarians

Bulgarians are a South Slavic people, the main population of Bulgaria. Bulgarians live in a land of mountains and valleys with long pastoral traditions, where people keep sheep, goats, cows and in places water buffalo. Dairy is the basis of Bulgarian cuisine.

Kiselo mlyako, Bulgarian yogurt, became world-famous. In 1905 the Bulgarian student Stamen Grigorov, working in Geneva, described a rod-shaped bacterium in it, later named Lactobacillus bulgaricus. Genuine kiselo mlyako is fermented by two kinds of bacteria: Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus. In the early 20th century the scientist Élie Metchnikoff linked the longevity of Bulgarian peasants to this food, which made yogurt popular in Europe.

Kiselo mlyako is used for the cold soup tarator and the drink ayran. Bulgarian sirene, a white brined cheese, and kashkaval, a hard cheese, are a must on the table, and the Rhodope Mountains preserve old fermented milk products such as katak.