Culinary Festival Brings Together Bulgarians from Across Romania

Yoana Vodenicharova, BTA correspondent Martina Gancheva

BTA Photo

Izvoarele, Romania,

12.11.2023 15:22

(BTA)

A culinary festival devoted to the sweet banitsa [a traditional pastry] was held at the Culture House in the Romanian village of Izvoarele on Saturday. It was organized by the Balgarski Izvori Association, the Union of Banat Bulgarians in Romania, and the Izvoarele Municipality.

The festival began with a prayer for health and well-being made by Father Kiril Sinev, the priest of the Bulgarians in Romania, and went on with a rich programme including song and dance performances. Participating were folk ensembles of Bulgarian communities from various areas of Romania, including Izvoarele, Branesti, Bailesti, and Cosesti.

While enjoying the performances, the guests of the festival could sample traditional Bulgarian dishes typical of the Bulgarian community in Izvoarele. The authentic dishes were prepared according to old recipes that were passed down through generations from mothers to daughters. Arranged on long tables were dishes with potatoes, onions, roasted pigeons, fish with rice, dried fish, peppers with garlic, pickles, fig jam, different types of round loaf, and beans in a clay pot, among others.

"The round loaf you see there with the flowers is usually made when a godmother comes for a visit. The round loaf is placed on the table with fried chicken, and when the child comes to meet her, she breaks off a piece of the loaf and some of the chicken. It is a great custom. It is still observed today. A custom of the Bulgarians in this area of Romania," one of the participants in the festival told BTA.

Dishes were also presented by guests from the Petar Parchevich Community Centre based in the northern Bulgarian village of Asenovo. They had made Linzer cookies, different kinds of banitsa, including with Turkish delight, apples, poppy seed, and pumpkin, among others.

The culmination of the festival was a pumpkin banitsa bake-off. A jury made up of the folk ensembles’ directors and Ognyan Iliev, First Secretary at the Bulgarian Embassy in Romania, picked three winners.

All the women who took part in the culinary part of the festival were awarded diplomas and were presented with gifts such as rolling pins, oven mitts, and cooking utensils.

The festival featured a show of traditional Bulgarian costumes. Some of them were provided by a Bulgarian woman who married a Vlach.

She told BTA that Izvoarele is about 400 years old and was founded by Bulgarians. "I love visiting Bulgaria, because I am a Bulgarian. I married a Vlach. Back in the day, girls could not marry in another village. This applied to me as well. But they sent me to study in another city and that is how I met my husband. And I turned him into a Bulgarian," said the woman, who keeps a box of folk costumes from that time.

"We wanted to show the rarest and oldest costumes of the Bulgarian community in Izvoarele. Some of them are 150 or 200 years old," said Biancа Vasile, founder of the Balgarski Izvori Association.

There was also a mini-exhibition of vintage clothes and photos of the people they belonged to. Wearing an authentic 150-year-old shirt herself, Vasile described the exhibition as a mirror of the past.

The festival ended with Bulgarian songs and a horo chain dance.

/IV/