Family Treasure (home encyclopedia). Part I. Third Edition (Corrected and Augmented).

A[nton] N. Delev Family Treasure (Home Encyclopedia). Part I. Third Edition (Corrected and Augmented). Printing house of Br. P. Spirkovi, Sofia: 1895 // 677 p.

Third edition of the second* major Bulgarian cookbook - first edition: "Liberal Club" printing house, Sofia: 1891 // 562 p.; second edition: (corrected and supplemented): Printing House of Br. P. Spirkovi, Sofia: 1894 // 678 ​​p.; The section on food preparation is extensive (90 pages in the first edition and 134 pages in the third), but insignificant compared to the volume of the book; The rest is occupied by all kinds of household advice - from choosing a place for the construction of a house, through choosing furniture and clothes, to maintaining cleanliness in the household; Body of book in very good condition except title page (child's scribble marks, lower right corner torn off), greasy finger marks to lower right corner of each page; Missing the original paperback which was pink. These damages in no way affect the text of the book.

We present here the first Bulgarian comprehensive household book, because its publication - in three editions in four years - is part of a purposeful and deliberate activity for the accelerated exit of Bulgarian society from the Ottoman medieval darkness, for the complete modernization of Bulgaria. This activity, which arose spontaneously immediately after the Liberation, was led and moved rapidly forward both by the entire political class - in which there is complete unanimity on this matter, and by the Bulgarian intelligentsia. And this activity is truly comprehensive, it covers absolutely all areas of social, scientific and cultural life in the country. The modernization of the domestic and personal culture of Bulgarians, of the food culture, is even a little late. This process will receive the greatest acceleration only in the second and third decades of the XNUMXth century. And this will become clear from the dozens of home, cookery and mixed ("books for the young housewife") collections that were published at that time.

If we go back to the first Bulgarian cookbook - Petko Slaveykov's Cookbook - we will find that the dishes offered there are "according to how they are made in Constantinople", that is, in their multitude they suffer the strong influence of Ottoman, Arab, Persian and Asia Minor cuisine. In the cookery part of the Family Treasure (home encyclopedia), an attempt was made for the first time - weak, incomplete and partial - to clear the exposition of the remnants of the multinational Ottoman cuisine, but this process goes hand in hand with the indiscriminate and chaotic addition of Western European examples of eating and dishes due to the absence, as yet, of a sufficiently collected array of examples of Bulgarian national cooking. The cooking section in Family Treasure (home encyclopedia) abounds in borrowings from French, German and Italian cooking - broths, Julienne soup, pureed soups, Windsor soup, German cream soup (i.e. with cream), three types Italian pasta soup, soup à la tortue, French butter soup, a huge variety of sauces, various types of steaks, roast beef, brizoli, schnitzels, creams, etc. At the same time, dishes from Russian cuisine are often found in the cooking section - several types of Russian soups, "Maloruski" borscht, Orlovsky meat, fireball meatballs, etc. The remnants of Ottoman cuisine are still clearly visible. In the end, it can be confidently concluded that the actual examples of Bulgarian national cooking in the cooking section of Family Treasure (home encyclopedia) are an enviable number. We can cite as an example here the presence of dishes with chickpeas (which later, as today, began to be denoted by Turkish words), as well as dishes on a stew, dishes with sorrel, nettles, lapad. But these examples of old Bulgarian dishes are really an insignificant number, several decades will pass until Bulgarian dishes become predominant in Bulgarian cookbooks.

The search for examples of original Bulgarian cooking in the country's settlements will intensify especially in the second and third decades of the next, twentieth century, and especially in the second half of the century, when this process will deepen, comprehensive attempts by scientists will be undertaken from various fields - ethnographers, nutritionists, technologists - for searching, documenting and promulgating the peculiarities of the Bulgarian national cuisine in almost all settlements in the country. The absence of purposefulness is the reason why the formation and presentation of the Bulgarian national cuisine in its entirety to the world has not been completed even today.

The book Family Treasure (home encyclopedia). Part I. Published in three editions and widely distributed. Today it can be found in all major Bulgarian libraries, as well as in many antiquarian bookstores, where the first edition is the most expensive. It is not known about the release of a second part; it remained unrealized probably due to the death of the book's compiler and publisher Anton N. Delev (1859-1902) soon after the third edition of the first part of the Family Treasure (home encyclopedia) was published.

The book entered the specialized scientific library of the National History Museum through purchase from a private person in 1978.


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* After [Petko Rachov Slaveikov] Cookbook or instructions for all kinds of parties, according to how they are made in Constantinople and various home references. First edition. Printing house "Macedonia", Constantinople: 1870 // 207 p.

Text: Ivan Petrinsky