Bulgaria - Spring

11.03.2008

Source: HIGHFLIGHTS Magazine - www.vagabond-bg.com

IF YOU ARE SEEING SPINACH, GREEN ONIONS AND GARLIC, CUCUMBERS, DOCK AND NETTLE SOUP IN YOUR DREAMS, YOU MUST BE IN BULGARIA IN SPRINGTIME

When spring sets in, Bulgarians begin to feel greatly afflicted by anguish and lovesickness, or get smitten with woes. Probably because someone gives them too much hope or because they are dealing with unpleasant matters. Some dreamers blame themselves for it.
spinach

This is how popular dream books, such as the one at rosali. com, explain a seemingly inexplicable phenomenon. When the snow begins to melt, almost everyone in Bulgaria starts seeing crisp lettuces, young green garlic shoots, fresh dew appearing under the skin of newly peeled cucumbers, tender scallion leaves or stewed nettle the moment they close their eyes.

Well, at least the good thing is that these books don't interpret what seeing spinach or dock leaves in your dreams should stand for.

Of course, the green dreams of the Bulgarians have a perfectly rational explanation. People are simply sick and tired of the long winter. Along with it, they are fed up with fatty pork chops, pickled gherkins, the so-called royal pickles, chips and heavy red wine. Nature is reawakening and so is the need to refuel your body with something that has just sprouted in the garden, contains loads of vitamins A and C, and is a natural source of iron - and also goes well with rakiya.

The Bulgarians have been starting their spring with green onions and garlic, spinach soups and pies, and lettuce and cucumber salads since time immemorial. It is true that they have a somewhat contemptuous attitude to entirely vegetable dishes -otherwise they would not have coined the saying "When Sheryu gets down the stone, you may even eat common sorrel!" It appears enigmatic at first glance, but its meaning is quite simple: a man turns to "green" food when he is very hungry and his winter supplies have run out.
cucumbers

To avoid such situations, the Bulgarians have invented dozens of ways to vary their green spring diet. After chopping the green onions, lettuce, cucumber and green garlic to make a salad, and adding the compulsory salt, vinegar and sunflower or olive oil, they put in radishes, olives and hardboiled eggs cut into quarters or eighths or shaped like a rose - fair enough. Some pour drained yoghurt on top. Lately, people have also been experimenting with crabsticks, tuna fish, sweet corn, ham or blue cheese. You must admit, however, that this hardly fits the notion of a "traditional Bulgarian green food".
onions

But stewed spinach does. And how! After you wash the leaves and chop them up finely, put them for a few seconds into the hot oil that you have just used to brown some chopped green onions. Add water and stew it (don't forget the salt and black pepper) until you get a thick, dark green mass. Put it into a greased tin, form several nests in it with a spoon and break an egg into each of them. Pop it into a preheated oven and bake until the eggs are firm. If your table companions think that the dish is too meagre in calories, you can always treat them to some dry pan fried pork steak as a side dish.
nettle

Thus you get a meal that deserves to be eaten to the last bit, carefully polishing off any last trace on the plate with a piece of bread, and to be dreamed of throughout the next winter. This explains why provident Bulgarian housewives begin storing spinach in their freezers as early as spring and take it out whenever someone in the house has a vitamin crisis.

And what does seeing parsley in your dreams signify? It is an unequivocal warning: you have to lead a healthier lifestyle.