Food

Grain supplied much of the food eaten in medieval Bulgaria. Fields and gardens provided cereals, pulses, vegetables and fruit, while animals supplied milk and meat as well as labour. Preparing a meal joined this agricultural work to the household’s tools, fuel and time. The First Bulgarian Empire, 681–1018, and the restored empire after 1185 occupied changing Balkan territories, with different opportunities for cultivation, trade and access to food.

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Grain and the work of preparation

Wheat, rye, barley and millet appear in studies of medieval crops, with their relative importance changing between regions and periods. Wheat could be ground into flour for bread; millet and other grains could also be boiled. Historian Nikolay Hrissimov’s study of plant foods argues that porridge probably occupied a particularly important place in early medieval meals. Its prominence helps explain why a grain-based diet need not have consisted mainly of loaves.

Before grain could be eaten, the harvested crop had to be threshed to separate kernels from stalks, cleaned and stored. Grinding broke the kernels down further. Coarsely processed grain could be simmered with water into a thick food; finer flour suited dough. These preparations involved different amounts of milling, water and fuel, so the form in which a household used its crop affected the work behind a meal.

Bread added another operation: dough had to be formed and baked. A household oven stored heat in its masonry, while a vessel over a hearth allowed food to be stirred and simmered. Archaeologists have found corner ovens and hearths in modest dwellings at Pliska. Cooking therefore occupied part of the same small interior used for storage and other household tasks.

Pulses, gardens and fruit

Pulses widened the diet beyond cereals. Research on early medieval plant foods discusses lentils, peas, broad beans and chickpeas. They could be cooked into soft foods alongside grain and other ingredients. Their dried seeds were also suitable for keeping, making them useful beyond the short period in which fresh garden produce was available.

Fruit trees, gardens and vineyards supplied foods with a different seasonal rhythm. Grapes could be eaten or made into wine, while other fruit added sweetness and variety. The preparation and survival of these foods differed from that of grain: a charred store of wheat is easier to identify archaeologically than a meal of fresh vegetables. Studies therefore combine plant remains with written references when reconstructing the range of ingredients.

Animals and dairy foods

Cattle, sheep, goats and pigs formed part of the rural economy. Keeping cattle was connected with traction as well as food, because oxen helped cultivate fields and move loads. Sheep supplied wool and milk; pigs could be raised for meat. Slaughtering an animal drew on a resource that might otherwise continue to provide labour, milk or offspring, linking food choices with management of the household’s livestock.

Milk could be processed into cheese and butter, products recorded in accounts of the medieval economy. Processing changed a perishable raw material into foods with different uses and keeping qualities. Meat and dairy availability also depended on the size of a household’s herds, access to a market and religious rules governing meals. Wealthy consumers could draw on estates and purchased supplies beyond their immediate surroundings.

Storage and cooking vessels

Storage bridged the interval between harvests. In a tenth-century house at Odartsi, archaeologists found charred wheat in ceramic vessels. At Velino on the Pliska plain, grain pits lay inside and beside a sunken-floor dwelling fitted with a stone oven. These arrangements placed supplies close to the installations used to prepare them.

Pots, jars and bowls served different stages of handling food: holding a reserve, cooking a portion and bringing it to the table. Their manufacture connected eating with pottery workshops, and their use required attention to heat and breakage. A household also needed to retain seed for the next sowing, so the grain available for immediate meals was only part of what a harvest had to support.

Wine, fasting and communal meals

Vineyards connected farming with wine production. Fermentation transformed grape juice into an alcoholic drink, while vessels were needed to keep and distribute it. Wine circulated through local production and trade and also had a central place in the Christian Eucharist, the service commemorating Christ’s Last Supper.

At Bachkovo, founded under Byzantine rule, Gregory Pakourianos’s rule of 1083 prescribed bread, wine, cheese on specified days and changes during fasts. The monastery’s communal table made food distribution an organised responsibility. Feast days and periods of abstinence gave its meals a religious rhythm alongside the agricultural year.