Communist Gourmet: The Curious History of Food in the People’’s Republic of Bulgaria

Communist Gourmet presents a lively, detailed account of how the communist regime in Bulgaria determined people’s everyday food experience between 1944 and 1989. It examines the daily routines of acquiring food, cooking it, and eating out at restaurants through the memories of Bulgarians and foreigners, during communism.

In looking back on a wide array of issues and events, Albena Shkodrova attempts to explain the paradoxes of daily existence. She reports human stories that are touching, sometimes dark, but often full of humor and anecdotes from nearly one hundred people: some of them are Bulgarians who were involved in the communist food industry, whether as consumers or employees, while others are visitors from the United States and Western Europe who report culinary highlights and disappointments. The author made use of the national press, officially published cookbooks, Communist Party documents, and other previously unstudied sources.

An appendix containing recipes of dishes typical of the period and an extensive set of archival photographs are special features of the volume.

Albena Shkodrova is a historian a popular writer. After a career in political journalism and travel writing, she was for eight years the editor in chief of Bulgaria’s food and wine magazine Bacchus. Communist Gourmet, first published in Bulgarian, became a bestseller in the country. Albena Shkodrova has published academic research on the cultural history of food in the Balkans and Eastern Europe in Food & History, Food, Culture & Society and Gastronomica among others, and her monograph, Rebellious Cooks and Recipe Writing in Communist Bulgaria, is forthcoming from Bloomsbury Academic. Currently she is a researcher at the Institute for Social Movements in Bochum, Germany.