I found myself with some unexpected time this weekend and rather than kill myself grading, grading, grading, I've been entertaining myself with big cups of coffee, my kindle, catching up with friends and flipping through Bulgarian cook books.

Last week I borrowed these three cook books from one of my Bulgarian colleagues. Thanks, T.!  These are serious cook books.

[caption id="attachment_4242" align="alignleft" width="614" caption="Bulgarian Cook Books"]<a rel="attachment wp-att-4242" href="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/?attachment_id=4242"><img class="size-large wp-image-4242 " title="Bulgarian Cook Books " src="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/IMG_7026-1024x682.jpg" alt="" width="614" height="409" /></a>[/caption]

One is reprinted from 1937; it's the cook book for a girls school and has recipes for each month and includes things like brain kufteta. This cook book is intense. It breaks down the recipes by animal and then by animal part. It also uses some spelling I am not familiar with. Oh well.<!--more-->

Another one of the cook books is divided up by holiday. This one is charming in comparison with little hand-drawn illustrations and a description of each holiday before the actual recipes. These recipes look a lot easier to follow as well.  I guess it helps that this book was published in 1992.

Then there's the Women's Day cook book. My friend T. explained that this book is a collection of recipes which ran in the Bulgarian Women's Day magazine. This book was published in 1990. It's divided up by dish--soups, main dishes, deserts. Within a category like soups it's been further subdivided--soups without meat and soups with meat. That's cool.

This is by far the easiest book to flip through and look for recipes. Probably because of the way that it's organized and the font is nice and big. That's important.

Across all three books, what's hardest for me is that while I can read the names of recipes and the ingredients, the directions are often pretty unclear.  I can't really imagine what I am supposed to be doing with the ingredients. I could really use some pictures or potentially a better grasp of Bulgarian.

The thing I've found most interesting? I am strangely attracted to all of the recipes with internal organs like liver, kidneys and brains as well as tongue and animal heads. I think I am attracted to these recipes because they are so unfamiliar to me. I'd guess that by the 1980s in the States most cook books were editing out these kinds of recipes as American tastes had changed. I don't remember seeing a recipe in any of my mother's cook books (aside from maybe the Joy of Cooking) which used organs like kidneys or liver as a main/central ingredient.

So the former vegetarian in me reads these recipes with a hearty mix of amazement and trepidation. I don't <em>love</em> meat. In fact, I am very happy (and totally comfortable) continuing with my vegetarian ways at home.

Mostly I started eating meat again because I didn't want to miss out on anything when I moved to Bulgaria.  I didn't want to say no. I wanted to be open to everything. And two and a half years later, I don't regret it.

Now I don't know that I'll be making brain kufteta or cow's head soup during this cooking adventure but I'll still be pushing myself. Don't worry.