Dr. Atkins Worst Nightmare…

Well, I showed up to my high school class today. It was fairly typical – today’s topic was American food and eating habits. Near the end of our chatting about the fact that you can have any food delivered to you door, a student spoke up. He told me that today is a holiday in Bulgaria. Really, I said. The class went on to explain to me that today is the day when everyone buys little round loaves of bread and tosses them down the mountain. Ok. Why do you do this, I ask. They weren’t sure. When did it start? No clear answer, other than a long time ago. Pretty much all the kids knew was that this was the day you by bread and huck it down the mountain. Intrigued, I went to see what was really going on.

I met up with the class and started the short walk to the mountainside. The kids passed the time by saying things like, ‘you’re tall’ or ‘why are you here?’ Fun for them, I am sure. Once we got to the right spot, we were joined by every other kid in Samokov. From the little ones on up. It was a bit overwhelming to begin with, never mind the fact that they were all carrying loaves of bread wrapped up in plastic. Pretty soon, the kids were whipping their bread down the path and chasing after them. If any poor soul got in the way of their bread’s progress, the kid would shove them out of the way – I think distance is important. After awhile, everyone was just standing around with that sheepish we-just-tossed-a-bunch-of-bread-down-a-path kind of look. So, we walked back down, found our loaves of bread and ate them. All of it. These things were about as big around as a soccer ball and about half as tall. It was a lot of bread. I have a feeling this was just a nasty ploy by the bakers of old to juice up spring sales. But, that could just be the cynical free market side of me.

[Email to a Friend:]