The Bulgarian pie was ranked in the top 10 of the most delicious cheese dishes in the world. It occupies the fifth position in the Taste Atlas ranking.
In the top 50 of the most delicious dishes with cheese in the world, there are two more traditional Bulgarian specialties – shepherd’s salad (41 position) and Shop salad (14 position).
In different parts of Bulgaria, the cheese pie is made in a different way and can have a different taste, Prof. Dr. Ana Kocheva, head of the “Dialectology” section at the Bulgarian Language Institute at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, explained to Radio Sofia. She was convinced of this with her colleagues while they were traveling in connection with the work on an interactive culinary map of the Bulgarian language territory.
“We visited Mysia, Thrace, Macedonia, the Bulgarian historical diasporas around the world. We found out that banitsa is the most traditional Bulgarian dish. It is related both to the festive table and to everyday life,” said Prof. Kocheva.
According to her, some of the words used to denote the pie have Slavic origins, which is proof of how long it has been prepared in our lands. Other names are mill, wedge, zelnik (“but it is not necessarily with cabbage, but with all kinds of greens from the garden – spinach, spinach, even herbs”) and others.
The oldest known form is “gibanitsa” in the Vidin region. (The verb nagibam means to fold, bend.) There are also names from the Turkish language, for example burek, sweet tatlia, etc.
Also known are milky, pulled, lazy, barren pie.
“We can talk about culinary Balkanisms both in terms of language and food,” emphasized Prof. Kocheva.
