Fat and Football - Experts? Get Stuffed!

It is a home with everyone in holiday mood with some family here. The women go their way into the kitchen watching Bulgarian TV and the men go their way into the evening room to watch live football. Everything had been prepared for the match; well actually it was one of the best combinations to make an evening a very special one. Why am I going to mention food again? You have to in this country as once again the simplest of foods made the evening memorable and I felt compelled to write about it.

Whist we were cheering teams on , groaning at referring decisions and debating the finer points of the offside rule we were tucking into probably the worse food on earth as far as nutritionists and food health experts consider, but 99% of food gurus who know what is best of you have probably never been to Bulgarian and tried any of the food there. Sometimes, in fact most times here, the food is eaten from the point of taste and not considered whether it would give you a couple of extra poor quality years tagged on to the end of your life. I'd rather die slightly younger and enjoy it rather than spending wasteful years stressing out looking for eternal youth and listening to 'experts' who say what you can and can't eat. (Most of this is commercially geared anyway!) Besides, what is the average life expectancy of food gurus anyway? I digress.

This evening the food was prepared well in advance, 2 Kilos of juicy pig ears hade been boiling in a pot on a bottle gas stove outside all afternoon and then were dried off and barbecued just before the match started. Then there was the drink, consisting of home made grape rakia Yambol red wine and dark beer from our largest neighbouring town, Stara Zagora.

The evening started up as the pieces of barbecued pig's ears that had been cut up into morsels that fitting perfectly into bite sizes. Each piece was to be individually and generously salted, then ready for the mouths of the community of football fans to enjoyed as the whistle not just for the kicking off the match but kicking off with the food an drink. The Rakia, wine and beer freely flowed washing down the food that just complimented the football evening so well.

If you look at what we were actually eating it doesn't paint a good picture at all, pure fat and lots of salt accompanied by alcohol, but by golly, it was something very special this particular evening. Why not indulge in something that you enjoy? Most people here do.

Brilliant evening, brilliant food, brilliant drink the only thing that spoilt it was refereeing decisions. My God, how people are called 'experts' in their field, but really just don't have a clue, not just referees either.

Barbecued Pig's Ears - A Bulgarian Treat

Having not had pig’s ears for nearly two years it was more than a pleasant surprise to end up with this delicacy on the dinner table this evening.

Having been in both the villages of Skalitsa and Hanovo grape picking for two days, I returned to Yambol with a Lada crammed full of the wine producing crops, which were dragged out and then turned into a big plastic barrel.

After treading them for a while as I looked up I could see the house windows were all steamed up. It was not very warm today and this was a mystery as usually this only happens in the winter. It was in the house that the reason for this was discovered; the bottled gas stove had a pot that was bubbling away with pig’s ears. Galia having not seen me for two days she thought it would be could to surprise me with one of my favourite dishes, barbecued pigs ears!

The last time I had these was during December 2006 at a pig slaughtering even in the village, but during that time the pig’s ears were not boiled beforehand, they were just cut of the pig and immediately grilled on the fire that was heating a big pot of cabbage stew. Barbecued pig’s ears are then normally served with warm Rakia to the butchers working on the owner of the ear’s carcass. The whole experience was unforgettable, but to get an opportunity to try this particular recipe would normally have to wait for winter again and another pig slaughter day.

The pig’s ears were boiling away as Galia asked me to get the barbecue ready, it was now raining but that had never stopped the opportunity for a barbecue before as it was set up under a big green fishing umbrella, under which we often find Baba sitting passing the day under away from the normal hot sun. It was mentioned that the option to boil the ears is not always taken up by Bulgarian but this is what they do in this household.

All was set up as the ears were drained off, sliced up into strips and laid on the barbecue to sizzle away. Salted, turned and browned on all sides the end result was a meal that would be the most popular part of the meze on the table. The plate which was most frequented with Bulgarian forks was the pig’s ears.

The talk was about how cheap the pig’s ears were compared to eating them in the restaurant, the cost was around 2.20 leva (under £1) per kilogram. In restaurants they would charge over three leva for a couple of pieces and wouldn’t be the same as the homemade version.

It was a very happy Bulgarian family that sat here enjoying this out of season meal, especially so knowing that they had also made the Englishman even more happy to return from his solo grape hunting weekend.