Event time: The first Saturday of October
GPS: 44.00081579541762, 26.463167502261612
Contact: Community Center "Vasil Yordanov - 1942", e-mail: chitalichte_nova_cherna@abv.bg; kniga50@abv.bg; tel: 0895020195 Todorka Vladimirova, chairperson
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The “Mamaliga” festival in the village of Nova Cherna, Tutrakan municipality, is being held for the twelfth time on October 5, 2024 and is part of the cultural calendar of the Tutrakan municipality.
“Tradition, dance, song and food” – this is the motto of the festival.
A main attraction of the festival every year is the preparation of mamaliga (porridge) in an authentic way. Bulgarian and Romanian amateur chefs demonstrate their skills in preparing this traditional dish, using a hearth, a chuven (a large metal container) placed on a pyrostia or hung on a tripod, and a facalets (a wooden spoon or rolling pin, in Romanian “facalet” means a paddle, related to the specific shovel-like motion when stirring the mamaliga) for stirring.
The idea for the festival arose 12 years ago as an initiative to diversify the cultural life in the village. The choice of mamaliga as the central theme is related to the history of Nova Cherna and the livelihood of the local population, which has traditionally been associated with agriculture and corn cultivation.
The name “mamaliga” comes from the history of the migration of Bulgarian families from the Balkans to Bessarabia and Moldova about 200 years ago. Upon their return, some of them settled in the Romanian village of Cherna, from where they adopted the name of this dish. After the signing of the Craiova Agreement in 1940, when many Bulgarians were forced to move from Northern to Southern Dobrudja, they brought with them the tradition of preparing mamaliga.
