We stumbled on this wonderful USENET archive: https://usenetarchives.com/
There is so much history captured there! (We hope this website continues to host the archives.)
Here is the very first post in soc.culture.bulgaria from December 30th 1991: https://usenetarchives.com/view.php?id=soc.culture.bulgaria&mid=PDE5OTFEZWMzMC4wNDI4MzEuMjc5MDdAdXgxLmNzby51aXVjLmVkdT4
p**....@u*****.***.****c.edu
30/12/1991 04:28:31 UTC
Helo friends,
It is great to have the Bulgarian group open. Let us thank David Lawrence.
Everybody, please, feel welcome to post articles. Why keep it empty?
Of coarse it is holiday time and many of us might be away from their
computers.
We, wife, son and myself, had a woderful Xmas in New Orleans.
Maybe it is our imagination but the atmosphere in this city reminded us of
Varna and Sozopol (bulgarian Black Sea towns) and the creole cuisine tasted
very much like the stews (I believe "stew" does not sound bad for a dish)
from my childhood. I hope you too had good Christmas holydays.
And since New Year is coming let me send you all the best wishes -
good health, prosperity, success, interesting travel etc.
These wishes remind me of a detail of the new year celebrations we used to do
when we were kids in Bulgaria (and which we still do) - "banitsa s kasmeti".
The idea is similar to the fortune cookies you get here in chineese
restaurants. "Banitsa" is a kind of fillo pastry and "kasmet" is luck or
wish or fortune. The pastry is cut in pieces, the plate with the banitsa is
put in the middle of the table and spinned by the oldest person in the family.
When it stops everybody takes his piece with his kasmet for the year.
If you are interested here is a simple recipe of banitsa which my wife gave me
for you:
Ingredients: 1 lb phillo pastry dough leaves, 3 eggs, 0.5 lb bulgarian
white cheese (substitute could be fetta or even cottage cheese), 1-1.5
sticks of butter.
Preparation: Place 3 or 4 sheets of pastry dough evenly over the bottom
of a cake pan which you have well greased. Brush over each sheet of pastry
with melted butter before placing another sheet on top.
Thoroughly mix the eggs and the crushed cheese. Spread some of this
mixture over the pastry. Add another 3-4 sheets of pastry and a layer of the
egg-cheese mixture. Continue until you finish the ingrediends, ending
with buttered pastry on top. Cut in pieces. Preheat the oven to 350 and bake
for 25-30 min. Increase the temperature to 450 and bake for
another 5-10 min to get a golden-brown crust.
Good appetite and once again all the best wishes for the New Year.
Ivan