The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Try Balkan food for a change

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Monday, Jul 06, 2009
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Karnataka - Bangalore

Try Balkan food for a change

Staff Reporter

From elaborate salads to desserts, here is an unusual food festival

Photo: Bhagya Prakash K

Exotic: Chef Vita with her preparations at the Balkan Food Festival at The Chancery Pavilion in Bangalore. — .

BANGALORE: From hummus to Mississippi mud pie to chicken 65, Bangaloreans love their food and are willing to experiment. Now they have a chance to check out fare from the Balkans, thanks to a mouth-watering food festival organised by The Chancery Pavilion.

Shopska salata (a Bulgarian salad), Turkish beef salad, proletna supa (a Macedonian mixed vegetable soup), fish guvech, which is a typical fish preparation in the Balkan region, sutliag (rice pudding, very similar to kheer), shokolad sofia (eggless Bulgarian chocolate mousse) and torta malkov (Romanian sponge cake) are among the many exotic dishes on offer.

According to Kirin Jeet Singh, Public Relations Manager, The Chancery Pavilion, the fertile Balkan region enables the cultivation of a range of vegetables. Hence the salads tend to be elaborate and well-made.

The food fest features Bulgarian, Slavic, Macedonian and Turkish cuisines.

Says Ms. Singh: “We are exposed to Chinese, Italian and other cuisines. We thought we should introduce some thing different to our patrons, and that was how the festival happened.”

Chef Vita Bozadzhieva, from Bulgaria, told The Hindu said she had approached her cooking as would a wife do for her husband.

She spoke elaborately about the food from the Balkan region. “Our cooking involves extensive use of potatoes, herbs, parsley, oregano, onion, garlic and cheese. Herbs such as chubritza, lend a distinctive smell and taste. I brought them with me all the way from home. A lot of the food is expertly stuffed. Domatis gabi (stuffed tomatoes with mushroom) is a special delicacy. We are meat eaters; so our meat is very well made as a consequence. The vegetarian food in India is very similar to ours, except that it tends to be a lot spicier.” She also spoke of how yoga, which she practises regularly, was a present that India had given her even before she reached here.

This is her first visit to India, and she says she will take back a lot of influences from the local style of cooking.

The Balkan Food Festival is on from 7.30 p.m. onwards at The Chancery Pavilion till July 19.

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