Dovizhdane (Довиждане)

‘Goodbye’. Less formal is chao (чао) which is like ‘bye’ and obviously comes from Italian as merci comes from French. Chao works on its own, but at the end of a conversation, you’d say haida chao (хайда чао) which is like ’alright then, bye’. The response from the other person is usually different. If you say chao, they’ll say chao chao, and visa versa. Lek den (лек ден) is nice as it means something like ‘have an easy day’ or, if it’s the evening (which is feminine), it’s: Leka vecher (лека вечер). Again, the response is adjusted to just leka.

Parking

In a car park, the foreigner’s car will be the one facing forwards. Even when a car is parked entirely on the pavement or is blocking you in, it will have been reversed there. The logical reason for this could be to make a quick getaway, but that would suggest the kind of foresight which isn’t born out in the general driving style. Lane hopping, red light jumping, ignoring one-way systems if no-one’s looking – Sofians drive as though they hate being in their cars and are desperate to get out of them, rather than taking extra time to reverse park.

Snezhanka

In a restaurant you’ll usually see a section on the menu that comes after the starters and says ‘appetisers’. These are different types of dips that will generally include: katuk (made with sirene and Bulgarian yoghurt), kyopul (made with mashed aubergine and garlic), tarama (taramasalata) and snezhanka. The translation of snezhanka is ‘snow white’ and it has the same ingredients as tarator but without the water - it might also have pickled gherkin instead of cucumber. It’s perfect to eat in the sunshine on a summer picnic and goes very well with rakia.

Dober den (добър дeн)

This is ‘good day’. Dober is ‘good’, den is’ ‘day’. There doesn’t seem to be a common greeting for the afternoon, but you can say dobra vecher (добра вечер) for ‘good evening’ and dobro outro (добро утро) for ‘good morning’. The ‘good’ part changes because of the gender: day is masculine, evening is feminine and morning is neutral. If you want to be less formal (and avoid getting confused by the whole gender palaver) the rough equivalent of ‘hello’ is zdraveite (здравейте) – or just zdravei if you know the person really well – and zdrasti (здрасти) is the equivalent of ‘hi’. 

Gyuveche

The name comes from the small, round ceramic pot it’s cooked in - you can find these pots in any souvenir shop or market stall. The dish is very old and very adaptable as it depends on whatever ingredients you have available. It’s simple to cook and methodical in preparation. You cut up all the bits into small pieces - ours has yellow cheese, sirene, ham, tomato, pepper and leek - then layer them inside the pot and put it in the oven. Just before it’s ready, you crack an egg on top. Everything melts together into a magnificent goo.

Too Good Is Not Good

In terms of outlook, this phrase goes even further than the ubiquitous British response: ‘not bad’. At least ‘not bad’ holds something in reserve – a reluctance to fully commit to anything actually being positive – whereas ‘too good is not good’ is actively against any good things that might happen. This enables you to maintain a gloomy and cynical disposition in every possible situation, regardless of how wonderful it might be. I’ve also seen people pretend to spit after giving a compliment to imply they didn’t mean it, just in case you were likely to take a compliment as ‘too good’.

Tarator

A beloved summer staple. It’s eaten with a spoon as a kind of thin, cold soup or you can drink it – which seems much more logical to me. It takes a while to get used to this one as it tastes a bit like watered down tzatziki. The first time I ordered it from a takeaway soup shop, I mistakenly ate it with bread and was so disgusted that I poured the whole lot down the toilet. It’s made with half Bulgarian yoghurt, half water, cubes or strips of cucumber, and garlic – you can also add crushed walnuts for texture.