
Bulgaria played a vital role in introducing yogurt to the West - ohjeez
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20180110-the-country-that-brought-yoghurt-to-the-world
======
mitko
Bulgarian living in USA, here are my 2c - there is Bulgarian yogurt in USA -
the one nearby store is the "White mountain" brand. It is a tad more sour than
other yogurt but in unpleasant way at all, or maybe I'm biased to recognize it
:).

I'm ashamed we Bulgarians haven't done better marketing of it as it is really
good and superior than Greek. Everyone knows about Greek yogurt but nobody
knows about Bulgarian * . I love Greek yogurt too, but the reason it's so
thick is that it is strained.

Bulgarian yogurt derives its thickness and structure from the fermentation
process, and good yogurt should not fall off if you turn the jar upside down.

* - at least in USA, in east Asia (Japan, Thailand in my experience) the most popular brand of yogurt is named "Bulgaria" and is in every 7/11 or supermarket.

EDIT: format of the asteriks

~~~
yongjik
Oooh story time: in Korea, the most famous brand of yogurt is named "Bulgaris"
and its TV ads depict gorgeous valleys with medieval monasteries, where people
make yogurt the old-fashioned way, and live happily ever after. Thanks to
these ads, Koreans think all Bulgarians drink yogurt every day and live up to
a hundred years. Or something like that.

And then another yogurt company decided to market a new brand of yogurt... by
naming it... (drum roll please...) "Bulgaria"!

Of course the first company sued the second company. And then the Bulgarian
embassy weighed in, supporting the second company, because it turned out that
the first company was using yogurt-making germs imported from Germany!

And then the court decided for the first company, essentially declaring that
the nation of Bulgaria, sadly, does not own the name "Bulgaria" (or
"Bulgaris", or Bulga-whatever) in Korean trademark system. (But don't quote me
on that. IANAL.) The whole affair was very entertaining.

~~~
darkhorn
> Koreans think all Bulgarians drink yogurt every

I'm not sure about ethnic Bulgarians but ethnic Turks in Bulgaria consume
yoğurt every day. There is always yoğurt in their kitchen.

~~~
vasko_velichkov
Most Bulgarians _eat_ "кисело мляко" (sour milk) every day, some mix it with
water + some salt to make "айрян", which is a drink :-) The so called "yogurt"
has nothing to do with "кисело мялко". I am not saying that yogurt is bad,
it's just some powder milk + emulgators + sweeteners, produced by companies
like Danone, Nestle etc. We have hundreds of brands, but only a few produce
the "real deal"...free market, you know :-)

------
martythemaniak
For Canadians, I've found that Pinehedge Farms
([http://pinehedge.com/](http://pinehedge.com/)) make the closest yogurt I've
found to Bulgarian yogurt. It's pricy and hard to find, but its thick, tastes
right and even has that fatty layer on top that's a mark of using non-
homogenized milk. First timers might be put off by it, but think of it as free
clotted cream or light butter and use it!

Personally, I started making my own yogurt after getting an InstantPot and a
packet of Bulgarian starter culture. It's very easy, tastes great and is
cheaper than even the cheapest yogurt you can buy at the store. You can also
control if it comes out fresh/sweet and the degree of sourness.

Another thing I've experimented with is making yogurt cheese. Regular
fermentation requires 6-8hrs at 40C (depending on how sour you want it), but I
started fermenting for 60hrs. At that stage, it's so sour, it's not edible,
but once it's strained most of the acidity is gone and you're left with
incredibly thick, flavourful yogurt. I use it instead of sour cream, for
tzatziki, with jam, etc.

~~~
smnrchrds
Do you mind telling me which yogurt culture you use and where you got it from?
Thanks.

------
raspasov
Bulgarian living in USA here.

As other people have mentioned in the thread White Mountain yoghurt is the
real deal (I have no connection to the company). Real Bulgarian yoghurt
proudly made in Austin, Texas :)

Joking aside, their yoghurt is superb. I don't recall yoghurt like theirs even
in Bulgaria. Unfortunately you can't order directly from them but you can find
if it's available in a store near you from their website
[http://www.whitemountainfoods.com](http://www.whitemountainfoods.com)

------
darkhorn
I thought that yogurt is widely used in all formal Ottoman lands. And it is
called yoğurt because milk becomes sticky (yoğun), thus yoğurt in Turkish.

~~~
blacksmith_tb
It's interesting that the first recorded uses in English (according to the
OED) mention it as a Turkish foodstuff:

"1625 S. Purchas Pilgrimes II. ix. xv. §9. 1601 Neither doe they [sc. the
Turks] eate much Milke, except it bee made sower, which they call Yoghurd."

(See also[1]) I suppose it's possible that Bulgaria got yogurt during Ottoman
rule in the 14th century, and that the research in the early part of the 20th
just happened to be there. But it seems more likely to me that any group that
kept animals for milk would have fermented the milk to make it last longer,
and that knowledge would have traveled all over Eurasia.

1: [https://www.bonappetit.com/test-
kitchen/ingredients/article/...](https://www.bonappetit.com/test-
kitchen/ingredients/article/the-etymology-of-the-word-yogurt)

~~~
wavefunction
There may have been no real disambiguation by the original author from "Turks"
as an epithet for Ottoman citizens and specifically ethnic Turks as well.

------
John_KZ
The title is a bit misleading. It tells an interesting story about yogurt and
Bulgaria, but yogurt has been around for literally thousands of years and it
existed long before Bulgaria came to be even as a concept.

Most of the things mentioned (like traditional clay pots and the fermentation
processes) are fairly common across the Balkans. Bulgaria certainly have their
own local and interesting flavors but they didn't bring yoghurt to the world.

~~~
dang
Alright, we replaced the title above with a more narrowly scoped sentence from
the article.

------
written
Thank you Bulgaria. Hopefully the real thing without thickeners will always be
available. A lot of crap is being sold as yogurt by the usual multinational
culprits.

I guess we can make it at home if need be.

------
twic
> or even Icelandic yoghurt

That remark will date. I don't think Iceland is famous for yoghourt, but it's
somewhat trendy in the UK at the moment:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyr](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyr)

I had some of the Arla kind, fat-free and with a layer of apple compote. It
was sort of halfway between quark and yoghourt. It wasn't terribly pleasant -
it has that grim chalkiness that fat-free Greek yoghourt has, only more solid.
I can't see it becoming a permanent fixture in the dairy section.

~~~
lg
I'm a huge fan of siggi's plain whole-milk skyr. creamier than similar greek
yogurts I've tried.

~~~
pgtan
"creamier" means almost always that this product has nothing to do with
fermentation and work of microbial cultures, but was made thick by adding milk
powder, gelatin and sugar substitutes. The opposite of healthy, not to mention
the sh*ty taste.

~~~
bsilvereagle
Traditional skyr is made with rennet while plain yogurt is not. The rennet
helps breakdown casein and form a thicker yogurt.

------
smarinov
A piece of information which I missed in the article: ‘yoghurt’ was an almost
completely unknown word in Bulgaria until as soon as 2-3 decades ago. We call
the substance „кисело млѣко“ (kiselo mlěko)[1] which literally means ‘sour
milk’. Nowadays there are some products that are commercially available and
are denoted as ‘yoghurt’ (Bulg. „йогурт“), but the word still seems somewhat
unnatural for most Bulgarians and may not be completely understood by some
people (e.g. older, from the countryside, etc).

I am not a specialist, but the products that we in English call ‘yoghurt’,
‘soured milk’, ‘buttermilk’, ‘kefir’ are somewhat related and as far as I can
understand from my cursory research now, the former two fall under the
formerly shown term in Bulgarian, while the latter two are often referred to
as „мътен“ (măten), „мътеница“/„матеница“ (mătenitsa/matenitsa), „бутаница“
(butanitsa) and a few other regional names. Kefir is also often just called
that way if it was imported, e.g. from Russia or somewhere in the Caucausus–as
is usually done with other things (sometimes also with foreign-origin
yoghurt). ‘strained yogurt’ is „цедено кисело мляко“ (lit. the same), and
there are also other milk products some of which I am not entirely sure how to
explain since I don't know how exactly they are made, e.g. „катък“
(katăk–something like a milk-based spread; essentially the same name as
‘qatiq’ in many Turkic-speaking regions, but AFAIK the same name can refer to
relatively/quite different things from place to place), „таратор“ (‘tarator’–a
cold soup, similar to ‘ayran’ with some specific added ingredients to it),
„сух таратор“ (lit. ‘dry tarator’, similar to Gr. tzatziki and Tur. cacık) and
a number of others which people who are better aware of the Bulgarian culinary
traditions would've probably mentioned here.

\---

Following is my completely wild guess, but unfortunately I wasn't able to find
reliable sources to either prove or disprove it, so take from it whatever you
want. Will be glad if somebody could chip in with more knowledge.

The Bulgarian term for yoghurt (as already said also not unknown in other
South Slavic languages, but the single most–and virtually universally–used
term in our language) seems closely related to the old Greek type of yoghurt
«οξύγαλα», which literally means the same (‘sour milk’). It was not uncommon
for Bulgarians to translate terms from Greek during Medieval times, but they
just took the Turkish word for all new things that came during Ottoman times,
with the most prominent examples that remain nowadays all being foods (e.g.
various plants or cooked dishes). Romanian features similar ways to refer to
yogurt (although ‘iaurt’ seems more common nowadays), but I don't know how
many of them are just calques, regional variants, or what the origin of each
is in particular. What is more, Albanian also has its own–although seemingly
unrelated–words for yogurt, buttermilk and various other milk products. This
leads me to think that ‘yoghurt’ was one of the things that was known on the
Balkans long before the Ottoman conquest and the Slavic speakers back then
knew it–or something essentially similar–quite well (in stark contrast to
another beloved milk product made out of yogurt: „айран“, the name of which
comes directly from the Turkish ‘ayran’).

P.S. As of now the Wikipedia article on the bacteria mentioned in the
article[2] says the following: “Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus
can be found naturally in the gastrointestinal tract of mammals living in
Bulgaria, but one specific strain, Lactobacillus bulgaricus GLB44, is
extracted from the leaves of the Galanthus nivalis (snowdrop flower) in
Bulgaria as well. The bacterium is also grown artificially in many other
countries.” It is yet to be given a proper citation, but this is the anecdotal
information I have heard on numerous occasions circulated in Bulgaria as the
source for the naming as opposed to the country of origin of the person who
discovered it. I don't know which version–if any–is correct, though.

P.P.S. There are also other milk products in Bulgaria with traditional names:

\---

[1] Official writing nowadays is „кисело мляко“, but I have left the former
spelling on purpose because this is etymologically more informative and makes
a more visible connection to all Bulgarian dialects as well as to all modern
South Slavic languages (also the ones from the western branch), where ‘kiselo
mlijeko’ is also not unknown.

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactobacillus_delbrueckii_subs...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactobacillus_delbrueckii_subsp._bulgaricus)

~~~
aorth
> кисело млѣко

I love that you used the old "yat" character that is missing from modern
Bulgarian (since the reforms in 1940s if I recall correctly[0]). I see it on
the coat of arms of the city of Sofia[1], though, and it makes me happy:
Расте, но не старѣе (grows but doesn't age). Modern Bulgarian would be: Расте,
но не старее.

[0] [https://poznavame-li-sofia.blogspot.bg/p/blog-
page.html](https://poznavame-li-sofia.blogspot.bg/p/blog-page.html)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_Sofia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_Sofia)

~~~
pvg
Countless Bothans have fought and died over literal centuries to free Cyrillic
from this godawful and pointless letter. You should both be ashamed of
yourselves!

~~~
smarinov
Yes, I plead guilty and am utterly ashamed of myself. My usage above was
totally misleading when we consider the way people write nowadays. :)

In Bulgaria, the letter was first briefly removed in a reform between 1921 and
1923 and then removed by the new regime after the end of World War II. It was
surrounded by controversy for a long time because in general there is one
single way a word can be read in Standard Modern Bulgarian–save for the
location of the stress–, which was not the case for this letter. In addition,
prior to its official introduction after Bulgaria regained autonomy–and then
independence–there were multiple ways to denote the sounds it used to stand
for.

But for the sake of etymology I find it quite useful in a lot of places since
it pops up in common but generally regular vowel changes across Slavic
languages.

~~~
pvg
_in a reform between 1921 and 1923_

Wait, really? Was this some zany БЗНС/Стамболийски thing?

~~~
smarinov
Yes, it was a БЗНС thing at first. There were three major reforms in the way
Modern Standard Bulgarian is written:

0\. no official codification (before 1899; basically everybody wrote as they
pleased and there were some differences between various authors); at some
point there was a mostly standard way to write in Bulgarian, though, which was
introduced and used by the precursor of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and
various other institutions;
[https://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/Дриновски_правопис](https://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/Дриновски_правопис)

1\. first official codification (1899–1921 and 1923–1945 with some minor
changes);
[https://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/Иванчевски_правопис](https://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/Иванчевски_правопис)

2\. shortly-lived attempt to modernise it (1921–1923);
[https://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/Омарчевски_правопис](https://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/Омарчевски_правопис)

3\. last and so-far successful modernisation, since it wasn't succeeded by
anything else yet (1945–nowadays). It was partly inspired from the previous
attempt and partly by Lenin's reforms in Russian from 1918, and not from other
Bulgarian or e.g. Serbian attempts, for whatever reason.
[https://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/Правописна_реформа_на_българск...](https://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/Правописна_реформа_на_българския_език_от_1945)

------
zwieback
Thanks, Bulgaria!

~~~
pgtan
If you are in Germany (guessing by the nickname), there is very good and
inexpensive yoghurt based on live Lact. Bulg. I buy about 10 tubs every week.
It's not that sour like in Bulgaria, but very tasty anyway.

[http://www.hansano.de/unsere-
produkte/produkt/joghurt/bulgar...](http://www.hansano.de/unsere-
produkte/produkt/joghurt/bulgaria-joghurt/)

~~~
zwieback
Thanks for the tip. Although I grew up in Germany I've been living in the US
for many years. When I first moved here in the 90s there wasn't much selection
but since then yoghurt has become a massive food trend. We have everything
from mass-produced to artisan specialty products. My fave is Fage greek right
now, some of the smaller brands have real issues with quality control.

~~~
pgtan
I don't know how it is in the US, but in Germany very few labels on the tub
declare if there are any live cultures in the yogurt, and no one with the
amount of that bacteria (like in BG). So one needs to develop a special taste
to find out, if the yogurt was made thick by the work of bacteria or just by
adding milk powder, gelatin etc.

~~~
wirrbel
gelatin may not be added to plain yoghurt in Germany iirc. It may be a
declared ingredient of fruit-yoghurt mixtures though.

------
nandreev
How to get the attention of every Bulgarian in SV: The Thread

------
ashwinaj
Whoever you (they?) are I hope you RIP.

Yogurt is my life saver....

~~~
deyan
Hopefully I am not misunderstanding your comment, but for the record:

Bulgaria is a small country in Eastern Europe with a population of about 7M
and bordering Romania, Greece, Turkey, Serbia, Macedonia, and the Black Sea.
Formed around 681. Lots of expansion, contraction, being enslaved, etc.
including 500 years under Ottoman Empire rule. These days the poorest and most
unhappy member of the EU according to research - but a member nonetheless!
Lots of immigrants including in the Bay Area and especially Chicago.

Couple of fun facts: When the USSR was still a thing, Bulgaria was making
personal computers, basically cloning Apple and IBM architectures.

Source: Bulgarian who moved to the Bay Area ~10 years ago.

~~~
interdrift
time to go back my friend, Dido it's time to disrupt EE :)

~~~
deyan
Oh, I am back all the time :)

------
bllguo
Personally I enjoy yogurt that is more drinkable. Anyone here try Beijing
yogurt before? Wondering what kind of products are similar here in the US.
I've seen some comparisons to kefir but I haven't yet gotten to try it.

~~~
tpm
You can actually prepare soured milk yourself, from untreated fresh milk (or
possibly even from pasteurised, but not from UHT or UV treated).

------
techer
Lactobacillus bulgaris factor

------
greydius
Where would we be without those ancient humans that decided to drink the juice
of rotten fruits or eat chunky spoiled milk?

~~~
tejon
Onions! Hey, this thing will make your eyes water at 10 paces. _Let 's eat
it._

Headcanon: the discovery that they are edible was the accidental result of a
failed suicide attempt.

------
jk2323
Should anyone be interested in making yogurt with Bulgarian cultures, they are
available on ebay:

US: [https://www.ebay.com/itm/Bulgarian-Starter-Kultur-fur-
Tradit...](https://www.ebay.com/itm/Bulgarian-Starter-Kultur-fur-
Traditionelen-Joghurt-naturliches-10-Kaps-20l/152096114152)

EU: [https://www.ebay.de/itm/Bulgarische-Joghurt-Starterkultur-
na...](https://www.ebay.de/itm/Bulgarische-Joghurt-Starterkultur-naturliche-
probiotische-30-Beutel-30L/202280610745)

I make Kefir myself with a culture that I once acquired on ebay. May try to
make Bulgarian yogurt one day.

------
akditer
I thought it was invented in Mesopotamia around 5000 BC. But, there is always
an alternate story invented by some idiot.

~~~
vasko_velichkov
There are hundreds of strains of Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus
and Streptococcus thermophilus bacteria, that are used to make "sour milk" (or
yogurt). I don't really care who invented what and when, I just enjoy the
great variety of natural products, and I really hate the surrogates produced
by the big brands like Danone and Nestle. At the end of the day, it is a
matter of taste, but as a Bulgarian I prefer natural Bulgarian "кисело мялко"
that could be found only in selected shops or in small villages around the
country, because it is more sour, naturally thick, with >5% natural fat. There
are similar products all over the Balkans and also in Iran, but they have
different taste and texture, I guess depending on the different strains used
for the fermentation and many other factors. I've traveled to more than 50
countries on 4 continents in the last 30 years, and I could say one thing -
just don't consume the "branded" surrogates, that pretend to be "something",
if you haven't tasted the real thing :-) I guess the same is true for every
food - just last week I've purchased like 5 different brands of Dijon mustard
in Dubai...OMG, none of them was even remotely close to what a Dijon mustard
is...

------
lowry
I brew kefir for well over 10 years. Healthier than yougurt.

~~~
yani
Any evidence to support this?

~~~
blacksmith_tb
There is evidence to support kefir's benefits[1], but that doesn't prove it's
healthier than yogurt. The primary difference between the two by my standards
is that kefir cultures are both bacteria and yeasts, and yogurt cultures are
typically only bacteria. There are certainly some yeasts that have been shown
to be good for the digestive tract[2], but there are certainly others that are
not[3].

1: [https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/health-benefits-
kefi...](https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/health-benefits-kefir)

2:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccharomyces_boulardii](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccharomyces_boulardii)

3:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candidiasis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candidiasis)

------
berg01
Okay. Thanks, we love it. It was a fantastic invention!

Now please bring the the thousands of bulgarian beggars distributed amongst
almost all the Swedish grocery stores back home. Please.

~~~
dang
Taking HN threads into nationalistic flamewars is a bannable offense here, so
please don't do that. Instead, if you'd read
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
and follow the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it. That means
avoiding flamebait and flamewars.

Racial flamewars aren't ok either, including in dog-whistle format, which is
how I read you at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16833066](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16833066)
and
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16834408](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16834408).

