Mary C. Neuburger - Ingredients of Change: The History and Culture of Food in Modern Bulgaria

While I alone am responsible for the content of this book, a number of people and institutions have helped and inspired me along the way and are deserving of thanks. I would like to thank various units at the University of Texas (UT) that provided me support throughout the research and writing process, namely the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies (CREEES), the Department of History, and the College of Liberal Arts. First and foremost, I want to thank the CREEES faculty and staff for providing me with an intellectual community and a place to call my professional home. I especially want to thank Agnes Sekowksi, assistant director of CREEES, for acting as a sounding board and confidante. You keep me sane. I also want to thank the history department and its past three (heroic) chairsAlan Tully, Jackie Jones, and Daina Berry. I am in awe of your fortitude and grateful for your support and flexibility.

Thinking back to how this project unfolded, it was the CREEES Food for Thought: Culture and Cuisine in Russia and Eastern Europe conference in 2014 that first sparked my interest in research and writing on food. It was there that I met and was inspired by so many colleagues across disciplines who have written on foodRonald LeBlanc, Stephen Bittner, Adrianne Jacobs, Jos Alaniz, Anastasia Lakhitova, Katrina Kollegaeva, Nikolai Burlakoff, Franois-Xavier Nrard, Dragan Kujundzic, Laura Goering, Ana Tominc, and our own student Abbie Weil (who always makes me laugh). Perhaps most importantly I met or reconnected with several Bulgarian colleagues (or scholars who work on Bulgaria), Stefan Detchev, Marcus Wien, Magdalena Slavkova, and Yusong Jung, whose work and collegiality have been important to this project. A special thanks to Stefan Detchev, who has shared his own large body of published work on food history, read all my draft chapters and offered comments, and shared many a delicious meal and bottle of wine in Sofia (and Austin). At a later food conference in Warsaw, I was lucky enough to also meet Albena Shkodrova and Rayna Gavrilova (whom I met with again in Sofia). I drew heavily on their pioneering research. It has been exciting to see Bulgarian food studies blossom, with the work of these and other scholars. I am hopeful that my work will offer a solid contribution to this new field.

I also want to thank the UT Slavic Departments Keith Livers, who worked diligently with me and some of the scholars from the UT food conference to put together a special issue of Gastronomica: The Journal of Critical Food Studies, titled Culinary Revolutions: Food, History, and Identity in Russia and East-Central Europe, which came out in 2017. Thank you Keith for working with me on the introduction to this issue, for our many conversations on food, and your enlightening article on food in contemporary Russian literature. We benefited from reading and editing the work of our contributors from the 2014 conferenceLeBlanc, Weil, Goering, Nrard, Kollegaevabut also Andrew Klobier, whose work on East German coffee sparked my interest at the annual convention of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) in 2016. I enjoyed working with all of you, and Gastronomicaeditor Melissa Caldwell, on this project. Melissa was extremely helpful in pulling this issue together, and her own pre-introduction to our introduction was brilliant! Her work on Russian food is an inspiration.

Another source of support for this project was the UT Department of Historys amazing Institute for Historical Studies. My semester of leave through the institute, in the year when the theme was History of Food and Drink, came at the best possible time for my project. Special thanks to the then director, Seth Garfield, and all the fellows (internal and external) for their feedback on my project that year. Special thanks to Michelle King and (frequent institute visitor) Rachel Laudan, who offered feedback on an early chapter of the book. The work of both of you on food history has been especially valuable for my thinking on food.

I also want to thank so many others at UT for their encouragement and many conversations on food that inspired me to keep writing. Thank you Christian Hilchey for sharing your passion for food, and your amazing cooking! I always enjoyed visiting your course Cuisine and Culture in Eastern Europe and discussing my work with your students. I am also grateful for the friendship and scholarly collaboration of Kiril Avramov and Jason Roberts, who have moved forward my thinking on so many issues. Kirils collaboration on the Balkan Circle has been particularly worthwhile, and I want to thank all attendees and presenters of this blossoming initiative. Thanks to Vlad Beronja and Chelsi West Ouheri, whose work, feedback, and presence in the Slavic Department have been amazing.

I appreciate so many colleagues I have connected with at ASEEES, other conferences, and through varied scholarly interactions over the past few years. Thank you all for your comments, feedback, and encouragement. This includes, but is not limited to, Robert Nemes, Andrew Behrendt, Alison Orton, Wendy Bracewell, Hillel Kieval, and Larry Wolff. A big thank you to Lyubomir Pozharliev (and Stefan Rohdewald!), who invited me to Giessen, Germany, to give a talk and a master class on food history. I am always gratified when professional interactions lead to friendships, and I hope to continue our collaborations in the coming years.

Speaking of colleagues who are now good friends, I have to thank Paulina Bren, who has always been such a good friend and helped move forward my thinking about consumption under socialism that took form during our coediting of