Babin Den or Mid-wives Day in Bulgaria

It was Babin Den or Mid-wives Day on the 21st January in Bulgaria. Everywhere they celebrated with Babas up and down the country. It has become the tradition for men to dress up as Babas with false knee knockers, grey wigs and the full make up, but I'm not so sure whether this was a tradition steeped in history or whether those that take these steps do it for another reason. I will remain silent on that one for now.

The day past and all was forgotten about Babin Day for a while. Next year the same thing will happen again I thought. Then on Monday evening, nearly a week after Babin Day our own Baba walked in the house with a single carnation and a serviette packed full of food, including banitsa, cakes, dried sliva (prunes), biscuits and bread. She had just come back from the school across the road where the children had given a concert of performances including reciting scripts, poetry and singing from memory, acting and a report on what they are studying at school currently. This was all in aid of the children's Babas all of which attended.

At the end of the performance in which all the children had some role to play, the Baba's were individually given a flower and food. Then their Baba was publically wished good health, happiness and luck in the coming year from their grandchildren (great grandchildren in many cases.)

This traditon goes back centuries as it was usually the Baba's who acted as the mid-wive and this day is to celebrate these acts which have to be performed. The rituals vary around the country with wine, rakia, food and dance involved in every one.

I have put forward an extract from one such tradition....

This day is celebrated in grandmothers' honour - midwifes for the health of children and pregnant women. On this day three rituals are performed: children's bathing, a feast in grandmother's home and grandmother's bathing.
From the Annunciation, grandmother prepares butter, honey, millet, a bunch of geranium and red wool. Early in the festive morning she visits each house where she has assisted in childbirth. There she baths the children beginning from the smallest one and she sprays lasses and young girls against the evil eye. Then she spreads the children with honey and butter. This spreading is called "painting red" and it is made for children's health.

(Courtesy of http://12121.hostinguk.com/midwife.htm)

This is just another example of family communities that have bonds which are fast disappearing in this world of selfishness. The schools here in Yambol apparently do this every year, but this is not typical of the whole of Bulgaria. It is an essential part of the children's social education, which I feel is more important than many other academic subjects taught in the curriculum. How long before the curriculum will be changed to rid itself of this as it may offend ethnic minorities? Negative? Yes, but also truthful.

'Foul' Chicken From a Bulgarian Supermarket

In view of Galia not being in the best of health it was a trip to the dreaded supermarket for some convenience food to make life a little easier for her this weekend with the meals we were to have.the last thing we wanted was for Galia to exhaust herself preparing for home cooked food which take up time and effort. So we were faced with a decision as to what we can buy that was cheap and easy to cook.

If I had my way I'd just forget the supermarket and just get some frozen meat that we had been using from last year's slaughtered lamb, goat and pig. We still had lots of stock of this meat, but the preparation took quite an effort. Galia just didn't feel it was right that I should be assigned kitchen duties this weekend. As she argued, "It was time for me to relax as well as her!" Well she did have a point, but only from her side of the fence. What she doesn't take on board is the fact that I don't find cooking a chore and it helps me relax whilst doing it. It's a bit of a turn around that Galia get stressed with me doing the cooking and I get stressed seeing her fingers being worked to the bone. Hence letting her just get on with choosing a meal from the supermarket.

The trouble right now with Bulgarians is that they believe everything they see and here in the advertising mediums. On the television, on the radio, in newspapers and on massive bill boards and posters, which is on the increase in Yambol. So, when is a supermarket the advertising ups another two gears it is a advertising and marketing tactical hybrid in action and the poor Bulgarian don't stand a chance in the face of such a monster. This particular supermarket called Kaufland. this is a German based company who excel in conning people into thinking the food there is good for you. Me, being a far wiser shopper from days gone by, knew better of it and certainly knew far better than 99% of shoppers there whose minds were being polluted before their guts were.

Galia had chosen a frozen chicken and a packet of dried chemical enhanced herbs and spices. This 'herb and spices' packet has a separate compartment where there was a plastic bag in which the chicken and chemicals, sorry herbs and spices, are introduced and whacked in an oven. Galia had seen this particular brand advertised on television, not once, but many times so it had been embedded subconscious mind and came to life when the product was recognised on the supermarket shelf. She at that point had just followed the planned advertising campaign as the fat cat advertisers sucked her into the world of false promises s we were to find out.

Now I knew that ever since first stepping onto Bulgarian soil and eating home produced chicken that anything else just wouldn't be the same afterwards. Was this going to be the case we with this supermarket factory produced frozen chicken and mainly artificial flavoured marinade. Galia was quite excited about it, she had seen the television advert and the picture on the packaging as a scrumptious occasion we should enjoy. What she didn't know is that the pictures of the chicken on the plate she had seen TV and on the package was probably painted with coloured lacquer and was of course totally inedible from the cosmetic make up that it had gone through to look like that. I didn't briefly try to explain, but the power of the advertising were too strong for my points raised. I decided to shut up and let her get on with it. I knew that the meal that we will end up, just wouldn't live up to Galia's expectations.

To cut a long story short, I knew that the frozen chicken might be 20% water as they inject the meat with water before freezing, I was right. When the chicken had completely defrosted the was such a puddle it overflowed on the plate it was defrosting in. We had paid good money, for this chicken, nearly 5 Lev a kilogram and 20% was now water not meat! Moving on, the meal was cooked exactly to the instructions laid out in 8 different languages and the plastic bag that was the cooking environment was opened once out of the oven. The chicken didn't look anything like the pictures on the package, then we tasted it.

Both Galia and I took one bite and just couldn't face any more. It was cooled and to be taken back to Yambol for Baba to do something with it, nothing wasted here of course. Galia had to agree with everything I had preached before, she was quite embarrassed about the whole episode. I had to remind here that we had been spoilt with the poultry we had eaten over the last few years. We realise that in the main, others who buy their frozen chickens from the supermarket on a regular basis, just don't know the difference, many if not most never having had the opportunity to taste home produced, free range chicken meat.

Will Galia ever buy frozen chickens from the supermarket again? Maybe as over time one forgets and the advertising may get back at her, but she is much more the wiser now. We both agreed on how lucky we are and are now talking about having chickens in the garage and yard in the Yambol house with eggs produced a added bonus!

A Weekend Retreat

Galia is now making good steps on her road to recovery from her first operation before having to endure another operation in a few weeks. I really to feel for her as she has been in pain throughout the ordeal, sometime you can't see the benefits ahead with this upon you. Reassured, time will see her through and the pain will have been a forgotten history in due course.

This weekend, we relaxed in Skalitsa at the farmhouse, we both love it there and if it wasn't so far away from town we would both be living there full-time. It just takes too long and is far too expensive to commute to Yambol and back on a daily basis. I used to do this and know it is not practical, and Bulgaria is all about being practical.

So two days in the Skalitsa farmhouse what did we do?

The answer is quite simply, Galia did nothing, I wouldn't let her. She wanted to cook clean and all the usual things that Bulgarian women are brought up to do. She knew it was wrong right now to exert herself with these chores so she just lay down on the sofa bed and watched television, while I did my English thing of not being able to relax.

While Galia was engrossing herself with Bulgarian television, I was drawn to the farm and land, big ideas again on the horizon about what to produce on this fertile land this year, I was almost in a trance as I walked around the grounds planning away. There wasn't much I could do outside right now, the ground was sodden and we all know there will be another major bout of snow and sub-zero temperatures before April, which is when work takes off here. I do have plans to start another blog about managing a farm in April when the new season starts, there will be a lot of work involved, but then who's scared of work? Back to today, there was one chore that could be done right now, that was to prune the fruit trees and a walnut tree that was impinging onto the summer house, so it was cutting and sawing branches for a couple of hours.

When I went back into the farmhouse to check up on Galia, she had dusted, vacuumed and mopped the whole house while my back was turned. I could never be angry with Galia, but just had to accept that not allowing, or trusting in my case, men to do housework is something that has been bred into women here for generations, so why be any different today? Galia also knew that when I did get back in the house after the pruning, I would have been doing these household chores instead of her despite her unwillingness to allow me. Well it was now all done and dusted and Galia was none the worse for it, seemingly. I was now in the house for the remainder of the day and was allowed to cook dinner that evening, something that I haven't done for a while.

Having now both completed necessary work inside and outside the farmhouse respectively, we relaxed in our own company. Well actually relaxing with our laptops with no work other than top up the wood burner ever few hours, but that's not a chore that's a pleasure. There is the story about the supermarket chicken this weekend, but that will keep until the next post.