The Road to AUBG’s Taste Fest: Flavour, Community, Tradition

Going to the Taste Fest at AUBG is like getting immersed in the salad bowl of diversity on campus. And although visitors get a glimpse at a variety of traditional cuisines, their story and meaning in the context of their culture seem to have escaped from the spotlight. We learn more about the interwoven history, spices, and travel behind those traditional foods from AUBG-ers themselves. 

Where Health and Desserts Meet

“When it comes to food that I associate with my childhood, there is this dessert called shendetlie. It comes from the word shëndet, which in Albanian means health. People say that it brings health to you because when you eat it, it makes you happy. So, in a way, it makes you a healthier person,” Klelia Loka, a sophomore, shares.

Made out of honey, walnuts, and syrup, this cake is traditionally prepared only for Christmas and New Year’s Eve, and is served with homemade orange juice. 

Keeping this in mind, Klelia recommends that people visiting Albania try tavë kosi - a dish which  includes lamb meat, rice, and yogurt, which are most frequently prepared in a clay casserole.

Spreading Hospitality Through Food

The appreciation for clay pot dishes is also shared by Georgians who use them  to prepare their khachapuri - dough pressed to a clay dish’s sides, filled with cheese, and an egg yolk perched on top. 

Wine is another important part of Georgian cuisine as its main component, grapes, is used in desserts. The sweet grape juice left from wine production is usually mixed with flour to create a thick sweet treat called pelamushi. 

Georgians are proud of their hospitality, which ensures that everyone is welcome during supra, their feast. Away from home, the Georgian community at AUBG continues to spread this hospitality through food - something Tinatini Dvali, a sophomore, enjoys as well. 

“Cooking for my friends here is, I think, one of the best ways to let them know where I'm from and the culture, and also get to know each other. It’s a thing for the Georgians to cook, and then bribe other people to be our friends through food,” she jokes.

Bringing Warmth And The Spirit of Tradition

Hospitality seems to be the norm even further east, in the vast steppes of Kazakhstan, where some welcome their loved ones at the airport with a plate of baursaki (fried bread) in hand.

“A very sweet memory of mine is connected to the Kazakh embassy in Sofia. When you go to vote for the first time, they organize a celebration and give you a gift. So they did that and they also invited me to a dastarkhān (space where food is eaten in Kazakh), which was filled with food, among which baursaki and shashu (candy),” Alina Agayeva, a sophomore student in AUBG, shares.

But it is the beshbarmak (directly translated as five fingers dish) that the Kazakhs are famous for. It is made from thinly rolled dough, covered by horse meat and onions. 

“Beshbarmak is very homey because it is served in the shape of a yurt—a portable home that Kazakh people used in ancient times. So the dish brings this warmth whenever you eat it. It brings the spirit of an embracement of the family traditions,” Arina says.

From the Steppe to The Family Table

“My grandfather used to have a house in the village and all of our relatives would gather there. The preparation of beshbarmak was a whole teamwork event. It was challenging to feed 25-plus people, so everybody was involved. And when the dish was done, it just felt really different because of the efforts put into it and the atmosphere, especially when you’re eating from one plate with your cousins and sometimes you're forced to eat with your hands,” Nurmukhammed Tashbolotov, a Kyrgyz sophomore at AUBG, shares. 

Elaborating on the nomadic roots of Kyrgyzstan, Nur explains the connections his homeland’s cuisine has to animal-based products and the importance of “long-shelf” life dishes that would sustain his ancestors on their long journeys through the hard mountainous terrain. 

Kyrgyzstan shares a lot of commonalities in terms of cuisine with Kazakhstan and Mongolia. One of these commonalities, in addition to the fermented horse milk, is kurut—hard cheese balls made from the thick byproduct of kefir. While they eat it as it is, Kyrgyz people also make chalap out of it by mixing it with hot water.

One More Buuz

Mongolia is also home to nomadic people who have a long tradition of taking care of livestock, which is a main source of food for the country in terms of meat and dairy.

“Horse meat is so delicious! But we have such high respect for horses, we don't usually consume horse meat in our everyday lives. So beef is really preferred,” Anungoo Batbold, a junior at  AUBG, explains. 

With the Mongolian Lunar New Year celebrations in full force since February 9, Anu is reminded of what the typical course of the holiday would be back home. 

“We usually visit our relatives and friends. And then every time we go to one of their homes, we have to eat one or more buuz. It's a tradition. You must eat. Even when you're full, you have to eat,” Anu says.

As a Mongolian dumpling, buuz is made out of steamed dough filled with beef or horse meat, seasoned with onions, garlic, salt, pepper, and then shaped in different ways. 

“Mongolian households compete on how many buuz they make for the celebration. So, some people make a couple hundred, some people thousands. I think a thousand was the maximum for my family. We made them and our freezer was literally full. We didn't have a place to put more buuz in it,” Anu shares. 

Homemade Pelmeni for Every Occasion 

Russia also dabbles in dumpling-making, although not as intensively and not in the same form. For Ekaterina Guseva, an AUBG sophomore, however, there is nothing better than homemade pelmeni. 

“Every time when something good is happening, there must be homemade pelmeni on the table, prepared by my grandmother or my mother depending on where we are celebrating. Oh, and smetana (sour cream),” she says. 

Spreading over 17 million square kilometers, Russia combines a variety of nationalities that bring their flavor to the table, which makes it almost impossible for one person to know everything about her country’s cuisine. Even so, Kate shares that there is one connecting ingredient - love.

Back to The Roots

On the other hand, Danila Kapustin, a fellow AUBG student, considers the connecting factor between Belarusian dishes to be potatoes. 

“It's true, it's not a joke because half of the traditional meals are made from potatoes in different ways,” he shares. 

One of the more popular ones is babka, which is made from layers of grated potatoes, interchanged with layers of onions, carrots, cheese, and sour cream. But what seems to define Belarusian culture when it comes to food is its function as a connection between people and nature.

“I know it's kind of controversial but a majority of Belarusian people with really good income prefer to go on weekends to the countryside and enjoy pork belly and slanina around the fire with their families rather than go to a restaurant in the city,” Danila explains.

A United Community

Home cooking is an integral part of the Ukrainian community as well, according to Marko Mazepa, an AUBG junior.

“We'd rather use up an hour or two to actually bake bread on our own and spend time together in the kitchen, chatting about whatever happened during the day, than buy it from a shop,” he says. 

As a main exporter of wheat, Ukraine has a special bond with baked goods. Vareniki, which is one of the more popular Ukrainian baked goods, is made of pasty dough filled with whatever people like and shaped in the form of a half-moon. Whether stuffed with potato mash or whole-cherry jam, vareniki are always served with smetana.

“If you just eat vareniki by itself, people are going to look funny at you,” Marko says.

As a Taste-Fest expert, Marko finds that the best thing about the festival is how it brings different and similar communities together. He is especially thankful for the warm support of the Ukrainian community in Blagoevgrad, which also helps in the cooking preparations for the event.

“Sometimes we've had cases when people from the community would come and they would say, ‘We are going to make 300 vareniki for you because we know you don't have time as students. You just have to bring it to the Taste Fest so that you can represent our home.’”

Edited by: Vasil Paskov and Niya Manditsch