The locally sourced ingredients make the food taste so much better than packaged food, but at first, I was hesitant to try these new dishes.
When I first arrived in Sofia for orientation, I would eat lunch with the other Fulbright teachers at a buffet-style restaurant. This style provided a lot of options for us to try traditional Bulgarian dishes, but nothing was labeled. Not knowing what I was eating was a little scary at first, so I would pick the items that I thought were the safest. One day I decided that I needed to be more willing to try new things if I wanted to immerse myself into Bulgarian life. I think there is a lot to learn about a country through their food, so I decided that was a good place to start.
There was a chunky red spread in a bowl that looked interesting. The red color was so bright and it looked like a thick spaghetti sauce without the noodles. In Bulgarian, it is called лютеница, or lutenitsa. лютеница (pronounced lyu-ten-e-tsa) is one of the most popular relishes in Bulgaria. Based on the way it looked, I did not think I would like it, but I grabbed a spoonful and decided to try it.
лютеница (lutenitsa) is meant to be put on bread, so for my first bite, I just used a small spoonful of the spread. I thought that the dish would be spicy because it looked like a relish, but to my surprise, it was fairly mild. The spread had a strong tomato flavor, but there were other ingredients that gave it a fresh and slightly spicy flavor. The spread was chunky, but the only chunks I could see were tomatoes, so I knew there were other vegetables in it.
