Homemade is a word that seems to have moved from thrift to chic.  In the States we're in the middle of a homemade revolution and it's not your grandmother's lumpy knit sweater or canned green beans. Frankly, I am not even sure it's about saving money. It's about quality, taste, craft and the right to brag that you make it yourself.  It's cable knit sweaters, wraps and fingerless gloves on <a href="https://www.ravelry.com">ravelry</a>; it's blue birds, necklaces, purses, magnets, coasters and whatever else the mind can dream up on <a href="http://www.etsy.com/">etsy</a>; and it's blogs aplenty focused on innovative canning, pickling and preserving methods, recipes and techniques for our fruits and veggies as we dream of returning to the kitchen and away from flavorless cans from the grocery store.  It's a homemade revival and the twenty-somethings seem to be leading the way.

[caption id="attachment_1734" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Homemade Rakiya in a coke bottle"]<a href="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/img_1719.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-1734" title="Homemade Rakiya " src="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/img_1719.jpg?w=300" alt="" width="300" height="200" /></a>[/caption]

I was asked recently what my favorite word in Bulgarian is.  My vocabulary isn't that big so it's not some very clever, smart-person word.  In fact it's a pretty common word: домашен (homemade).  I think that I like it so much because it's a word that when it's paired with a noun like lyutenitsa, rakiya, jam, wine and you know that the noun is going to be better because of it.  It's unique, it's interesting and it might just take your breath away (this may be a good thing or a bad thing depending on the wine or rakiya you're drinking).

Anyhow just this week, the New York Times wrote an article on this <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/12/22/world/international-uk-bulgaria-food-winter.html?_r=1">homemade phenomenon in Bulgaria</a>. This article of course isn't a sexy article about the revival of homemade in Bulgaria.  Rather it's a fairly staid and slightly depressing article about homemade in Bulgaria. <!--more-->But then again there isn't anything very sexy about having to can and preserve fruits and veggies during communism so that you had enough to fruits and vegetables to eat during the winter.

Here are some statistics from the article:
<ul>
	<li>In Bulgaria, food bills consume 40 percent of wages, produced some 208 million jars of various provisions or an average of 100 jars per household in 2008.</li>
	<li>For many Bulgarians, whose average monthly wages of 300 euros ($430) and pensions of 80 euros are the lowest in the European Union, it remains a lifeline particularly as recession puts an end to 12 years of growth.</li>
	<li>The share of home-made jams, roasted peppers and eggplants, pickles and others in the total consumption of food fell to some 15 percent last year from 39 percent in 1998.</li>
</ul>
These numbers begin to reveal the differences in homemade in Bulgaria and in the States.  In the States, homemade has moved from necessity to luxury while in Bulgaria homemade is still about thrift, about saving money, about survival. Yes, there is a certain level of pride in it.  My twentysomething Bulgarian friends regularly brag about their grandfather's excellent homemade rakiya or tasty homemade wine from a little village outside of Sofia or come back to the city with homemade jams but on a whole they are not making it themselves.

But I am not criticizing them.  Far from it.  I get why they aren't lining up to learn how to make lyutenitsa or rakiya.  While delicious, making lyutenitsa or pickles at home seems to me to signal one of three things.  First, either you're doing poorly financially and cannot afford to buy pickles/lyutenitsa/jam in at the grocery store.  Or, second, it's a sign that you don't trust the current times and while you may not have a lot of trust in the economy or the government who wants the reminder of this hanging around on your shelves in the form of jars that you slaved over a hot stove to make? And finally, it might just be that pickling, canning and preserving is simply hard work and you don't want to do that and I don't begrudge you that choice at all.

It's clearly one thing to brag about your grandfather's rakiya and another thing all together to make lyutenitsa just in case.  And it's a whole another thing to knit a homemade sweater with expensive lambs wool just for the pleasure of it or to make small batches of jam from local berries simply because you can. Me? I like making things (sewing, knitting, paper stars). I also like eating homemade jams--the fruit tastes like sunshine in the middle of winter.  But I have to say: I am glad, very glad, that my friends and family don't depend on me to supply them with these things.