1,000 Foods To Eat Before You Die: A Food Lover's Life List (97 page)

For an extra bit of zing, mamaliga may be topped with one of the piquant cow’s, goat’s, or sheep’s milk cheeses produced in the Balkans—bryndza, halloumi, stringy hoop cheese, or tangy feta. The ultimate combination is Bulgaria’s deliciously oozy
kachamak
, which is soft mamaliga stirred through with butter and then layered in a baking pan with either shredded bryndza or crumbled feta. The final layer is topped with cheese and dots of butter and the whole thing is baked into a sort of Balkan lasagne. Although it is often served as a side dish with nothing more than a salad, kachamak adds up to a hearty lunch or supper.

Where:
In Queens, NY
, Bucharest Restaurant, tel 718-389-2300,
bucharestrestaurant.com
;
in Anaheim, CA
, Dunarea Restaurant, tel 714-772-7233,
dunarea.us
.
Mail order:
parrotcoffee.com
(search corn flour malai); amazon.com (search moretti bramata polenta coarse);
malincho.com
(search bulgarian feta);
igourmet.com
(search hoop cheese; halloumi).
Further information and recipes:
The New York Times Jewish Cookbook
edited by Linda Amster (2003), see Romanian Mamaliga;
Yugoslav Cookbook
by Spasenija-Pata Markovic (1963), see Polenta with Cheese;
easteuropeanfood.about.com
(search bulgarian polenta with cheese);
saveur.com
(search romanian polenta with sour cream).
See also:
Polenta
;
Feta
.

Dawn-pink rose petals, fragrant and beaded with early morning dew, have been a legendary specialty of Bulgaria for centuries. Though the petals are famed for the essential oils they lend to perfumes and palliative cosmetic lotions, they also provide luxurious, sensuous, dry, sweet flavoring to condiments and desserts.

Rose water or rose syrup scents confections throughout the Middle East and the Mediterranean, from
pastierra
(the Easter torta of Naples), to marzipans, chocolate bonbons, and cool fruit sherbets. Candied rose petals adorn and sweeten frozen desserts from Paris to Provence; on their own, the petals can be nibbled as breath fresheners. Most romantic of all may be the silken rose petal jam, a gently sweet, prettily pink, and glamorous topping for whipped cream or strawberry ice cream, or to crown scones at teatime.

The origin of the world’s most famous and abundant edible roses is the aptly named Valley of the Roses, at the foot of Bulgaria’s Rhodope mountains near the town of Kazanlak. There, the month-long picking ritual is a travel-worthy sight—particularly if you heed the advice of Lesley Blanch, who wrote of the event in her 1963 travelogue
Under a Lilac-Bleeding Star:
“It seems there are only a few weeks, in June, when the roses reach their apotheosis. Rose culture demands not only the precise moment of the year, but the exact moment of the day—sunrise. The flowers must be gathered while the dew is still on them, before the heat of the sun has drawn out all their perfume.”

Invited to dinner at a nearby convent, Blanch was welcomed with “a glass of pure water and little saucers of translucent rose-leaf jam; this is the Balkan version of an aperitif. The jam induces a fierce thirst, which, it is inferred, can only be slaked by the host’s finest wine.”

Retail and mail order:
In New York
, Murray’s Cheese, tel 888-692-4339,
murrayscheese.com
(search harvest song rose petal preserves).
Mail order:
amazon.com (search rose petal jam; candied rose petals; bulgarian rose water).
Further information:
Under a Lilac-Bleeding Star
by Lesley Blanch (1963).
Special event:
Rose Festival, Kazanlak, Bulgaria, June,
rose-festival.com
.

The predinner dish also known as Bulgarian salad.

Whether in a home or a restaurant, a traditional Bulgarian meal that doesn’t start with a pretty nosegay called
shopska salata
is a hard thing to find. Named after the farm village Shopi, near the Bulgarian capital of Sofia,
the salad is a pointillistic and sprightly mix of red, white, and green: diced tomato, cucumber, scallions or new white onions, and sweet and/or hot green peppers, the last most typically roasted and peeled (although the sweet green peppers are often diced raw for maximum crunchiness). Final aromatic fillips include salt rubbed through with garlic, along with black pepper, a touch of wine vinegar, and olive or sunflower oil. The essential identifying seasoning is
chubritsa
, a strongly aromatic, dusky gray-green spice blend that takes its name from an herb that has an elusive sage-tarragon flavor.

The crowning glory of shopska salata is a snowfall of feta cheese, copiously grated into the salad for piquancy and creaminess. On special occasions, that feta snowcap might be decorated with a tiny rosette of tomato decked out with pointed leaves cut from green pepper. Although a large, communal shopska salad is made for convenience, it is most appealing in individual portions heaped into colorful bowls, preferably one of the high-glazed, boldly colored types made by Bulgarian artisans.

Where:
In Pittsburgh, PA
, Sarajevo Family Restaurant, tel 412-766-3287,
startw.com/sarajevo
.
Mail order:
findbgfood.com
(click Marketplace, then Chubritsa);
malincho.com
(search bulgarian feta).
Further information and recipes:
The Balkan Cookbook
by Vladimir Mirodan (1989);
The Balkan Cookbook
edited by Snezana Pejakovic and Jelka Venisnik-Eror (1987);
food52.com
(search classic shopska salata);
easteuropeanfood.about.com
(search shopska salata).

Kohlrabi’s bulbous base is actually a stem.

Seductive to those who know and love its charms, kohlrabi remains relatively unknown. Although generally on view in small quantities on greengrocers’ shelves and at farmers’ markets, it goes untried by many unfamiliar with its uses.

Kohlrabi’s most edible portion is its bulb-like base, which looks much like a jade-green hand grenade. Yet the knob is not a bulb, but rather a thick, rounded stem that grows just above ground, with stringy roots reaching down into the earth and silvery green, cabbage-like leaves rising from long, thin stems.

The magic of this
Brassica oleracea
, a member of the Gongylodes group, lies in the remarkable if subtle flavor to which the vegetable’s Germanic name provides a clue:
kohl
for cabbage,
rabi
for turnip. And with its gently bittersweet overtones, the vegetable is indeed faintly reminiscent of cabbage, along with radishes,
mustard, and the white inner portion of broccoli stems. Peeled of its tough, fibrous outer skin, the green-tinged white interior has a texture similar to that of a water chestnut. Although many advise eating kohlrabi raw for its crunch, it really requires thorough cooking to release its mild, intriguing flavor. Its leaves are not nearly as interesting as its bulbous base, but they can be chopped into soups or stews as a much milder stand-in for collard greens.

Although it was present in eighteenth-and nineteenth-century England, kohlrabi has become most popular throughout eastern Europe, Austria, Germany, and Israel, as well as being a favorite latecomer to the Chinese kitchen. Chinese chefs stir-fry thin slices with black mushrooms in ginger and garlic sauces, and also stuff it with ground pork and garlic, or steam it with ginger and scallions. Eastern Europeans stuff kohlrabi, too, using either chopped vegetables or ground veal or pork, then braising the construction and sometimes topping it with a verdant parsley cream sauce. In Germany, kohlrabi stars in the mixed vegetable stew
Leipziger allerlei
(“Leipzig all together”), a combination that always includes carrots, onions, and green beans, and sometimes peas and mushrooms as well. Diced artichoke hearts may be added, and the cooking liquid may be thickened to make a dill sauce.

Where:
In New York
, Donguri, tel 212-737-5656,
dongurinyc.com
.
Mail order:
Melissa’s Produce, tel 800-588-0151,
melissas.com
.
Further information and recipes:
Beyond Bok Choy
by Rosa Lo San Ross (1996);
Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini
by Elizabeth Schneider (2001);
George Lang’s Cuisine of Hungary
by George Lang (1994);
Neue Cuisine
by Kurt Gutenbrunner (2011);
saveur.com
(search kohlrabi salad slaw);
epicurious.com
(search kohlrabi slivers and pea shoots with sesame dressing);
foodrepublic.com
(search tamarind beef and kohlrabi salad).
Tip:
For most purposes, small kohlrabi that are less fibrous are more desirable, although the larger type is useful for stuffing. To peel the bulbs (a necessary step), slip a slim knife point under the woody strings beneath the outer green skin.

Known as a coffee drinker’s tea, the intense, deeply flavorful, rich black tea grown in the foothills and on the steep hillsides of the Caucasus mountains in Georgia is prized for its earthy qualities and for its distinctive body. Tea was only introduced from northern China to Georgia in the late nineteenth century, but the region now produces what is considered by many to be among the most interesting teas in the world,
comparable to the Darjeeling it strongly resembles. Its land is ideal for tea growing—a citrus-, grape-, and hazelnut-farming haven with fertile soil, clean air, and an abundance of rain.

Strongly brewed, the tea is customarily served with cherry jam—specifically a variety made from Cornelian cherries, an exceedingly floral-tasting fruit also grown in the area. A spoonful of the jam is stirred into the tea to enliven and sweeten its flavor, and the result is potently soothing and delicious.

The Georgian tea industry faltered during the Soviet regime, but it was revived in the mid-1990s by foreign investors, mainly Germans and Danes, who bought up a number of tea processing plants. Now there are growers devoted to old-fashioned tea production methods, who farm the tea on a small scale—rolling, bruising, twisting, withering, oxidizing, and drying the leaves by hand—making it an exclusive and highly in-demand gourmet food product once again.

Retail and mail order:
In New York
, McNulty’s Tea and Coffee Co., tel 800-356-5200,
mcnultys.com
.
Mail order:
Tea Embassy, tel 512-330-9991,
teaembassy.com
(search georgian); amazon.com (search granny’s secret cornelian cherry jam).
See also:
Oolong Tea
;
Darjeeling
.