What Bulgarians Eat on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

Boiled wheat with sugar and walnuts or kolivo is a common first course at the Bulgarian Christmas Eve table. It is similar to Russian kutya or sochivo and is also known as kutia in Poland, koljivo, colivă, koliva, and more depending on which country you happen to be in. This first-course Christmas Eve pudding of sorts is made with wheatberries, or other grains or legumes like rice, barley or beans, that are sweetened with honey and sometimes augmented with poppy seeds, dried fruits or walnuts. The kolivo is eaten from a common dish to symbolize unity.

Pickled or roasted vegetables -- peppers, cauliflower, cucumbers, etc. -- are always present, along with meatless spreads like kiopoolu and lyutenitsa (a spicy red pepper spread similar to ajvar but usually without the eggplant). If oil is allowed to be eaten (it differs from family to family), tarama, a fish roe appetizer, might appear on the table, as well as olives that have been preserved in oil.

Bulgarian Christmas bread or koledna pitka is typically eaten on Christmas Eve and throughout the holidays. Often, a silver coin is tucked inside and the one to find it should expect good luck in the coming year. There are many ways to shape this bread, but I think this sunflower look is most festive. This recipe contains eggs, which are forbidden by some during Advent. When the bread is made with baking soda instead of yeast, it is known as sodena pitka.

In addition to the bread, many families have bobena chorba or sour bean soup prepared the "Monastery Way" or meatless. The classic recipe includes beans (usually the smilyan beans grown in the Rhodope region of the village of Smilyan), vegetables (carrot, tomato, pepper, onion, sometimes potatoes) spearmint, paprika and other spices and some type of souring agent. This soup is also prepared with sausage or another meat product but not for Christmas Eve. This sour soup is similar to Romanian ciorba and Serbian meatless bean soup.

Not all Orthodox Christians eat fish and eggs during fasting times, so not all families serve them for the Christmas Eve Holy Supper. For those who do, pike-perch, cod, carp, eel, whiting, and salmon take center stage. A simple roasted carp and potatoes like this Croatian recipe might appear on the table.

Beans and legumes figure prominently because they signify wealth and prosperity in the coming year. On a Bulgarian Christmas Eve table you might find sauerkraut salad with leeks, olives and carrots, grilled sweet red and yellow peppers, grilled eggplant marinated in olive oil, vinegar, spices, parsley and garlic, beans stewed with vegetables in a traditional clay pot. Meatless chomlek, prepared by stewing onions, tomatoes, and garlic seasoned with red pepper, bay leaf, savory, red wine and thickened with a roux, is also popular.

Cereals and grains appear in various guises on the Holy supper table, and might include baked beans and rice (Pechen Bobs Oriz), stuffed dried peppers (Pulneni Susheni Chushki), and stuffed grapeleaf rolls (Lozovi Sarmi) similar to this Greek recipe.

Dessert on Christmas Eve in the strictest Bulgarian Orthodox households is just a dried-fruit compote known as oshav similar to Polish compote or walnuts with honey, but others enjoy apples or have a baked pumpkin purée dish sweetened with confectioners' sugar and walnuts, or pumpkin banitsa also known as tikvenik. Some have a type of banitsa made with onions. In one of the banitsas would be small pieces of paper with good wishes and fortunes for the new year.

But at midnight, desserts are consumed by the score -- Maslenki (jam-filled cookies), (cookies made with rose-flavored Turkish Delight), and medenki (honey-spice cookies), among others.

Most Bulgarian families don't drink alcoholic beverages until midnight of Christmas Eve. Then, Bulgarian grape brandy (greyana rakiya) is served from ceramic ware. This potent drink is also known as rakia, rakija and rachiu in the Balkans. Serbian rakija is made with plum brandy instead of grape brandy. Another popular Bulgrian drink that might be served is mastika, a strong anise-flavored drink, that is drunk chilled. When mastika is combined with menta, a mint liqueur, it produces a traditional cocktail called "The Cloud." Heated red wine known as greyano vino, similar to Polish hot mulled wine also might be served. Read more about Bulgarian alcoholic beverages here.