Abstract: This paper examines the concept of clean, hygienic and safe food, which was developed during the process of food industrialization and mass production in Bulgaria. It focuses on the process of standardization of dairy production for urban residents in the 1930s and 1940s. The paper analyses the very concept of clean and dirty by studying the discourses of science and technology. The study traces the transformation of yoghurt from a homemade to a mass-produced product. Yoghurt was one of the staple foods of the Bulgarians and its industrialization was part of Bulgaria’s urbanization and the attendant need to provide safe food for a growing urban population. The justification of industrial food production involved various symbolic and discursive struggles between the supporters of traditional yoghurt-making techniques and scientists, in which the latter ultimately prevailed. The introduction of strict rationalized practices designed to control milk quality and safety was part of Bulgarian scientists’ instruments for regulating mass-produced food, but it also marked a new discursive shift where traditional yoghurt production was replaced by controlled and rationalized practices.
Keywords: yoghurt, dairy, standardization, pure cultures, modernization
Modernizing Bulgarian Dairy Production
In the early 20th century, with the growing importance of cities and a steadily increasing urban population in Bulgaria, government authorities and scientists faced several major problems. On the one hand, urbanization necessitated meeting the food needs of urban centres. Hence, the regulation, safety, and quality of food for mass consumption became vitally important. The agricultural and livestock sectors, being key in the Bulgarian economy as well as essential for food production, turned into a central issue in the debates on modernization. In the 1930s, Bulgaria’s political and intellectual elites were faced with the task of how to modernize those two sectors. In this context, milk and dairy products, as staples of the Bulgarian diet, were among the subjects of debate. The focus was on modernizing dairy production in Bulgaria so as to meet the standards set by European leaders in the dairy industry. Control of the milk supplied and processed for the needs of urban residents was an important part of the discussions on the safety and hygiene of food products for the urban population. The modernization of milk processing, the establishment of regional milk-collecting centres, the Milk Act (1935), and the opening of the first specialized dairy school in the town of Pirdop (1940) played a crucial role in the development of the dairy industry in Bulgaria. Each of those changes in the organization, functioning, and regulation of dairy production was a separate step in its modernization (Stoilova, 2014). Production of yoghurt, a food that became mass-produced later (than butter and cheese), was also impacted by the policies on modernizing the agricultural and livestock sectors.
The modernization of dairy production in Bulgaria should be seen as part of the European processes of reorganization and industrialization of the agricultural and dairy sectors. The main sources of information on this subject and on the discussions conducted and the strategies pursued for achieving it are the specialized journals on stock-breeding, crop farming, and dairy production. With the professionalization of agriculture, three journals devoted to the problems of the milk and dairy sector appeared in the mid-1930s. In 1935, an association of stock-breeders and dairy producers from Sofia and the region launched the journal Mlekoproizvoditel (Dairy Producer), which aimed “to protect the material interests of dairy producers” (Mlekoproizvoditel, 1935: 1). A year later, in 1936, veterinary specialists educated abroad established their monthly journal, Meso i mlyako (Meat and Milk). In 1940, teachers at the first State Dairy School in Pirdop launched a new journal, Mlekarska prosveta (Dairy Enlightenment), which survived three years. Its objective was “the professional advancement of Bulgarian dairymen” (Mlekarska prosveta, 1940: 1). These specialized journals published a series of critical articles whose main aim was to show the backwardness of the dairy sector in Bulgaria and to sound the alarm about the urgent need for changes in it. The experts writing for these journals represented the Bulgarian dairy industry as lagging behind modern trends, for it consisted of small decentralized producers operating with inefficient methods. Such qualifications turned the discussions about the needs for modernizing the sector into a direct criticism of traditional dairy farming and an urgent appeal for its replacement with new scientifically substantiated and technologically supported methods.
In 1931, commenting on the need to establish agricultural and stock-breeding cooperatives in an article in the journal Kooperativno delo (Cooperative Affairs), the economist D. Danailov presented the imposition of European models as necessary for the modernization of the sector. In his view, they were key to guaranteeing the quality of final products and satisfying consumer expectations for a cheap product of good quality (Danailov, 1931: 154). Apart from the issue of quality, Danailov also emphasized the need for product standardization. According to him, both were achievable with the reorganization and modernization of dairy production. Danailov argued that Bulgarian dairy production should follow a market- and consumer-oriented model. He stressed that “today’s market demands food of good quality, standardized and cheap” (ibid.).
A few years later, in 1934, agricultural specialist Yanko Antonov also emphasized the need for centralizing and regulating milk supply. His arguments are telling of the modernizers’ message: “It is particularly imperative that milk supply should be regulated and modernized in the large consumption centres (Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna, Burgas, Ruse, Pleven, Stara Zagora, etc.)” (Antonov, 1934: 71). Another article by the same author again commented on the urgent need for reforms, and made clear whose European models should be followed. These were the examples of countries with traditions but also with already developed mass dairy production, such as Switzerland, the USA, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden (Antonov, 1936: 19). Another problem he outlined was the relationship between the modernization of the sector and the protection of the health of the urban consumer. He pointed out as a problem of mass production the difficulty of controlling quality and hygiene. In Antonov’s view, Bulgaria was not unique in its problems, but it was backward and less modern and developed than the leading European countries in this field. In an article arguing the need for milk centrals, he wrote:
[T]he problem of urban milk supply has long preoccupied scientists and the people who have undertaken to protect public health. The more cultured countries have long since solved this problem, persistently seeking improvement in the hope of achieving perfection: providing consumers with healthy milk of an absolutely guaranteed good quality with preserved natural and nutritional characteristics. (Antonov, 1936: 19)
As a result of these debates, the Bulgarian state adopted in 1935 a Statutory Ordinance on Milk Processing, promulgated in Darzhaven vestnik (State Gazette), no. 16. This was the first law regulating milk production, milk processing, and milk distribution in Bulgaria. It gave priority to cooperative production, thereby encouraging the consolidation of small producers. The Statutory Ordinance also laid the foundation for Bulgaria’s dairy infrastructure. Thus, the country was divided into regions depending on the conditions for dairy farming. The aim was to ensure a proper ratio between milk yield and the capacity of milk-processing enterprises (Dimitrov, 2010: 210).
Introducing Scientific Principles into Yoghurt Production
The initiatives to modernize the dairy sector in Bulgaria had an impact on yoghurt production. The main threat perceived by experts was related to the growing knowledge of microbiological hazards. Thus, scientists began to see almost every space as a potential source of various infections, among which those of tuberculosis, cholera, and typhoid fever were the most common. Milk, as the main raw material for the production of yoghurt, was defined by experts as a risky product because of the possibility of its being infected at many points in the production chain. The view gained traction that the animals themselves may be the source of numerous infections. Poor hygiene was identified as another source of infections: the unwashed hands of milkers and handlers, poor hygiene of the containers in which the milk was to be stored, etc. The growing knowledge of the invisible world of microorganisms led to a revision of food production, processing and storage practices, especially of those involving food for mass consumption. Awareness of the microbiological hazards in food also led to a discussion on the need for controls covering the main stages in the making of any food: from production to storage to distribution and sale.
In her case study of the development of industrial dairy production in Germany in the late 19th century, German historian Barbara Orland traces how public concern about food quality and safety grew. She analyses the industrialization of butter production and concludes that the problematization of milk hygiene was a reflection of the attempts to mass-produce a natural product such as butter (Orland, 2005: 213–216). Microbiologists, veterinarians, and chemists played a major role in this process, both at the national and global levels. They were the figures who radically changed the idea of pure and impure. Their arguments were based on what became known in the 1860s and 1870s. Thanks to the work of Louis Pasteur, the science of microbiology developed, as did knowledge of fermentation and spoilage processes, and the possibilities of controlling them. Until then, knowledge of the composition of foods and the role of microorganisms was extremely limited. Developments in science and technology and the work of scientists such as Robert Koch, Martinus Beijerinck, and Sergei Winogradsky allowed more detailed researches. The accumulated scientific knowledge influenced the overall understanding of microorganisms and their ability to have both a positive impact on food and human health (good microorganisms) and to cause food spoilage and disease (the so-called bad microorganisms). The scientifically proven risk posed by microorganisms made them a hazard that every food producer had to recognize and eliminate. Dealing with the invisible threat of these microscopic organisms was essential when producing food for mass consumption. Foodborne disease outbreaks became the new problem of industrial production, a hazard that required strict sanitary control over raw materials and the production process. The new sanitary discourse in the food industry and healthcare had gained momentum earlier in Europe, but had a direct impact on what was happening in Bulgaria and on the standardization and regulation of Bulgarian dairy production in the 1930s and 1940s.
The actors of the modernization of the Bulgarian dairy industry were specialists who had received their education abroad. Returning to Bulgaria, they became the main activists for changes modelled on the practices of the leading industrial dairy producers in Europe. The French-educated veterinary specialist Kosta Katrandzhiev was a central figure in these processes. It was he who in the late 1930s spearheaded the transition from homemade to mass-produced yoghurt. As a modernizer, he advocated the need for new production methods based on measurement and monitoring, as well as for control to guarantee product safety. In 1938, Katrandzhiev was appointed director of the Central Veterinary-Sanitary Station in Sofia. This position gave him a certain authority, but also the resources to reorganize milk and dairy production in Sofia. A year before taking up this position, Katrandzhiev and his fellow-veterinarians from the Sofia Milk Control Station carried out an inspection of the yogurt produced by the city’s dairies. The conclusion of the veterinary specialists was that its quality was unsatisfactory (Katrandzhiev, 1940: 50). According to the results of the samples they analysed, the problem lay in the starters used and the constantly changing proportions between the two microorganisms characteristic of Bulgarian yoghurt: Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus.[1] Their analyses showed that Lactobacillus was often suppressed by other microorganisms, and that there were also mutant strains. The results were not published until 1940 in the article “Yoghurt as food, and measures for its improvement in Sofia” (in Bulgarian). In it, Katrandzhiev claimed that the poor quality of yoghurt in Sofia was due to “impure”, “contaminated” and “old” starters (ibid.). Another problem highlighted in the article was the different taste and texture of the yoghurt produced by various dairies. The advice he gave for improving the product was entirely scientifically based: introducing strict sanitary controls and using pure cultures instead of maya (as the starter was called at the time).[2] In this case, pure cultures were laboratory-selected yoghurt starters in which the composition of the cultures and the type of microorganisms were controlled. According to Katrandzhiev, the use of laboratory-selected yoghurt starters, as well as compliance with basic hygiene standards, would lead to the production of a standardized product of good quality. In this article, he not only set out the steps that would ensure a microbiologically pure product. He also identified the dangerous points in yoghurt production. Katrandzhiev defined scientifically for the first time the specific characteristics of the product Bulgarian yoghurt (ibid.), specifying which cultures and in what proportion constitute it.
The definitions used by Katrandzhiev were based on concepts of the pure, sterile and predictable associated with laboratories and the manipulation of the natural environment that takes place within them (Latour and Woolgar, 1979). Any microorganisms other than those defined as typical of Bulgarian yoghurt were categorized as “undesirable microflora”. Any variation that did not correspond to the microorganisms grown in a laboratory or described as typical of Bulgarian yoghurt was considered undesirable and was associated with the risk of contamination and mutation. By introducing pure cultures into yoghurt production, the scientists sought to enable control of variations (in both microorganisms and taste) as well as of the unpredictable (variations in taste and quality of yoghurt, but also contamination of the product). Here the idea of purity was intertwined with the idea of control, of eliminating the unpredictable, the hazardous, the atypical. Laboratories, as a space where such control could not only be exercised but also monitored and directed, were promoted as the safe and clean space where microorganisms were subordinated and modified according to the needs of scientists.
Katrandzhiev’s article also introduced an opposition between “pure” laboratory-selected starter cultures and homemade or dairy maya. Maya are the starters that had been used in homemade production and dairy farming up until then. For fermentation, housewives and dairymen used a small portion of the previously produced yoghurt, which they put into milk that had been boiled and cooled to a certain temperature. Measuring the required temperature of the boiled milk was of utmost importance in yoghurt production. If the milk was too cold, the microorganisms would not develop and there would be no fermentation. If it was too hot, this would also stop fermentation and kill the sensitive lactic acid bacteria. In the shared traditional knowledge about making yoghurt, the maya was added when the milk was cool enough to allow the yoghurt maker to dip their little finger in it. Scientific discourse did not accept this sensory-based practice for determining the right temperature. It was seen as inaccurate and risky, as the dipped finger could introduce undesirable microorganisms into the milk.
The traditional yoghurt fermentation method involved so-called natural selection. The housewife or dairyman selected the yoghurt with the best taste, aroma and texture as maya for the next batches. In natural selection, the yoghurt maker selected the bacteria according to his or her taste and individual perceptions of quality. This resulted in the use of a variety of microorganisms and a taste adapted to individual preferences. The modernizers rejected this way of fermenting yoghurt, their main argument being that in it there was a high risk of contamination and that the taste varied constantly. The traditional methods employed to make maya and yoghurt were considered unhygienic and risky in mass production. Such rhetoric also led to concrete action to introduce laboratory-selected starter cultures for dairies to use.
In the article cited above, Katrandzhiev (1940) asserted the scientific concept of clean and dirty, aiming to limit the use of maya, which he defined as problematic. He found a solution to the purity and quality problems identified in his article in laboratory-selected starter cultures with live and active strains of desirable microorganisms (ibid.: 49). In his view, this was the way not only to eliminate potential contamination from contaminated starters but also to implement quality control. What Katrandzhiev and his supporters intended was not only to ensure the safety of the final product for the mass consumer, but also to standardize the taste and texture of the yogurt produced by dairies. Such a standardized taste could easily be achieved by getting all producers to use pure cultures. It was proposed that such cultures should be produced by the Central Veterinary-Sanitary Station in Sofia and distributed free of charge among the dairies in the city. Such a step had its scientific and hygiene arguments regarding consumer health protection and quality assurance. On the other hand, the use of identical laboratory-selected starter cultures had an effect on the variations in the taste of the yoghurt offered by dairies until then. As the dairies used different cultures and different raw materials, each dairy’s products differed. Consumers thus had the option of choosing a product that was closest to their taste. The taste of yoghurt depended on many different conditions, such as: the type of milk (sheep, cow, goat, buffalo), the milk yield of the animal, the pasture and health of the animal, the fat content and chemical composition of the milk, the maya, the equipment used to make the yoghurt, etc. Standardization of one of the key elements in yoghurt making, the maya, was an important step along the way to the overall standardization of the product.[3]
In 1940, Katrandzhiev ordered the supply of laboratory-produced starter cultures to the dairies in Sofia. Such starter cultures were also offered to the other administrative centres with control stations. The introduction of pure cultures imposed a new, different production method from the traditional one and an averaged taste. In order to prevent dairymen’s resistance, pure cultures were offered free of charge (ibid.: 43–56). Katrandzhiev also successfully used the specialized press to argue for the need for change and to impose the new method of fermenting yoghurt as safer and more hygienic, as well as the requisite hygiene rules.
The introduction of innovations in yoghurt production also involved criticism of the artisanal techniques and expertise of dairymen. Articles appeared in the specialized press commenting on the need for additional training of dairymen in how to operate special refrigerators, thermometers and other equipment to further ensure the hygiene and quality of the final product (see Stoilova, 2014). To increase knowledge of modern yoghurt production methods, the first Dairy School founded in Pirdop in 1940 began to offer specialized dairy training (ibid.: 89–91). Thus, the modernization of Bulgarian dairy production went through standardization of dairy production methods and institutionalization of training.
Female Skill versus Male Science
With the gradual professionalization of dairy production in Bulgaria, not only the methods of “ignorant” dairymen but also home production of yoghurt were stigmatized as improper. In publications in the scientific and popular press, contemporaries of the processes commented on the techniques of science-based yoghurt production. Scientists addressed dairymen, impressing upon them the need to follow scientific principles in their production.
Another specificity of mass yoghurt production in Bulgaria was the replacement of women (until then yoghurt production had been mostly a female occupation) by male dairymen. Although women had been “the traditional guardians of the technology [of yoghurt production] for centuries” (Stoilova, 2014: 103), they were not involved in the processes of transforming yoghurt from a homemade to a mass-produced, and later, an industrial product. This is particularly evident not only in the dairies themselves, which were operated by men, but also in the admission requirements of the first Dairy School. The two-year training course it offered was open to men only.
The institutionalization of dairy training led to the replacement of traditional techniques with “basic” technology following the principles taught in dairy schools and dairy manuals. As part of the professionalization of knowledge, K. Popdimitrov published in 1938 Bulgarian soured milk. Origin, manufacturing, nutritiousness, and control (Popdimitrov, 1938; in Bulgarian), the first manual on Bulgarian yoghurt production. Тhe manual’s publication was two years before the establishment of the first specialized Dairy School. The emergence of a clearly distinguishable national product, as stated in the title, is a clear sign of the activated processes of the inclusion of yoghurt in the pantheon of national symbols. Another important process set out in this manual was the definition of precise, measurable parameters for yoghurt production – steps and prescriptions for the production of a safe mass product with a standard taste, good quality and price, to be followed by the modern dairyman.
The emergence of dairymen, dairies and specialized vocational training institutions are processes whose analysis is based on the concept of masculinization, developed by historians of labour relations. This term is associated with the industrialization of “unskilled” female activities and their transformation into skilled male work (Rossiter, 1984: 73–99). Bulgarian dairy experts regarded rural women’s yoghurt production methods as backward and old-fashioned. In his 1938 manual, Popdimitrov described the different equipment required for a modern urban dairy. It included a pasteurizer, a thermostat, and a fermentation cabinet (Popdimitrov, 1938). In fact, the instruments listed are not sophisticated, but simple tools for removing milk fat, and regulating and maintaining temperature. They were labelled as highly developed technology. Gradually, traditional yoghurt-making techniques were adapted to the efficiency principles of science-based mass production (see Fig. 1 and Fig. 2).
Fig. 1. Homemade practices of yoghurt production. Source: Serdika, 1 (1938): 12.
Fig. 2. A dairy that is compliant with hygiene requirements and equipped with the necessary equipment. Source: Serdika, 1 (1938): 14.
Dairy production experts defined what they deemed was the proper yoghurt-making technology as corresponding to the modern scientific methods of production and criticized home production of yoghurt as irrelevant and inconsistent with modern times, and especially with the requirements of the mass market (Katrandzhiev, 1940: 52–53). Thus, the modernizers gradually replaced the traditional figure of the rural home-based, woman producer with dairymen trained in dairy schools and working in urban dairies. What scientists called “Bulgarian yoghurt” in the 1930s and 1940s, was a standardized product that eliminated local variations and replaced orally transmitted experience with precise definitions, recipes, and a strictly defined production site (the dairy) with controlled scientific methods and laboratory-selected pure starter cultures.
The Modernist Discourse
The modernizers imposed the idea that Bulgarian dairy production was backward. Before this view can also be accepted by present-day analysts of the period, it is necessary to take a more comprehensive look at the political, economic, and social situation not only in Bulgaria but also in Europe (or at least in the European countries with well-developed dairy production).
In his study on the modern era, Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity, British philosopher Stephen Toulmin (1992) problematizes the classical understanding of modernity. In his view, after the technological and scientific revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries, the ideas of infinite, universal, and ubiquitous progress were codified in the discourse of modernity. Toulmin (ibid.: 10–19) identifies industrialization and the development of science as key to the modernization process.
The modernization of dairy production in Bulgaria represented a clash, a contest of two discourses: of modernity and of tradition. This conclusion is based on the theoretical work of French sociologist Bruno Latour (1993), who traces such conflicts of discourses which often lead to “a break in the regular passage of time” (ibid.: 10), to the replacement of one social order by another. According to him, conflicting ideologies, such as the modernist and traditional discourses, often lead to “combat[s] in which there are victors and vanquished” (ibid.), in which new rules, interpretations, and practices are imposed, and the old ones are denied and rejected. The analysis of the public debates on the dairy industry in Bulgaria, which were played out in the scientific and popular press, suggests precisely that in the mid-1930s, the dairy sector was in a state of “a break in the regular passage of time”. It was caused by ideological confrontations and “combats” on the part of the modernizers – veterinarians, chemists, and microbiologists with a European higher education – versus craftsmen, dairymen, and female home producers. In these “combats”, one of the strongest arguments used by the modernizers was that of the impure. The danger of contamination, the impossibility of controlling food for the mass consumer were the trump cards they used in order to destabilize faith in the then-current yoghurt production practices.
The clash of the traditional yoghurt-making techniques that dairymen adapted in the 1930s, with the scientific rationalism of the modernizers of the dairy sector in Bulgaria, is what French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu would call a symbolic struggle to impose a new discourse (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992). In the case at hand, this was the discourse that sought to modernize dairy production through the reorganization and scientification of the sector. The leading argument in this discourse was the idea of the danger of contamination of food for the mass urban consumer. Scientists identified the invisible microorganisms as a major problem.[4] The new understandings of what modern dairy production should be like clashed with the accepted traditional practices (Stoilova, 2013: 73–77; Stoilova, 2014: 83–92). Modernizers and the modernization discourse brought about the end of the old technological practices, which were “condemned” as backward, hazardous, and unreliable from a hygienic and scientific point of view. The processes of the 1930s were a demonstration of what Latour (1993: 10) describes as the “finishing off” of one regime/order/system and the rise of another. The Bulgarian modernization of the dairy industry was fundamentally a discursive struggle aimed at imposing scientific principles and new models of production. Central to these discursive struggles was the argument for the hygiene and safety of food produced for mass consumption.
Conclusion
Mass-scale production of yoghurt in Bulgaria was driven by the needs of a growing urban population, which led to the transformation of yoghurt from a typical homemade product into a commercial product. Urbanization and the emerging urban culture were linked to the breakdown of the raw material – producer – consumer chain and the creation of new structures and logics in food production and consumption. Thus, in the 1930s the urban population in Bulgarian towns and cities ever more rarely made yoghurt at home, as consumption of ready-made yoghurt from dairies grew steadily. It was the birth of an urban consumer who was no longer the producer of the yoghurt he or she consumed that was one of the prerequisites for controlling the technology by which it was produced. Producing this product for a wide range of consumers required not only developing a production and distribution network but also standardizing technology and introducing state control. Here, the Bulgarian state and specialists drew on European experience and introduced legislation and production measures that followed Western models but were adapted to Bulgarian reality.
Producing yoghurt for an anonymous consumer outside one’s own family also required standardizing production to ensure consistently good quality and safety of the product. Veterinarians, microbiologists, specialists in the dairy industry redefined the idea of milk purity and quality. The traditional production methods were assumed to be risky because of the possibility of infection of the product at the various stages of its production. Knowledge about microorganisms, provided by developing microbiology, also raised awareness of the risks they posed. The specificity of milk as a perishable and easily infected product also determined many of the hygiene measures that scientists prescribed as mandatory to follow when working with milk. Scientists began to impose their understanding of clean/dirty and right/wrong in the production even of traditional foods. This scientific discourse prompted an analysis of the overall yoghurt production practices in dairies which were considered unhygienic and unsafe.
For the first time in the Bulgarian context, the need to intervene and improve traditional yoghurt-making practices began to be commented upon. Scientists argued for the need to introduce modern technologies and to use laboratory-selected, pure starter cultures. By introducing pure starter cultures as necessary for the mass production of yoghurt, scientists aimed to standardize the product as well as to ensure its consistent taste and quality. Even if necessary and sensible, such measures and actions, which protect the mass consumer, suppress the differences and specificities that are so characteristic of traditional products.
References
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Translated by Katerina Popova
[1] How yoghurt was defined as a Bulgarian product, as well as details about the discovery of its composition, can be found in the chapter devoted to these issues in the book Producing Bulgarian Yoghurt: Manufacturing and Exporting Authenticity (Stoilova, 2014: 33–81).
[2] Maya (literally, “yeast”) was obtained by preserving a small portion of yoghurt to use as a starter for the next fermentation batch.
[3] The full standardization and industrialization of the dairy industry, and of yogurt production in particular, took place in Bulgaria in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The process was part of the forced industrialization, nationalization, and massification of agriculture under socialism.
[4] To avoid possible infection, scientists advocated preventive measures: handwashing, observing hygiene standards, introducing pure cultures, etc. Thus, with the changes in technology and interpretation of production processes, other discursive practices also began to be pursued.
Biographical note
Elitsa Stoilova is Associate Professor at the Department of Ethnology of the Paisii Hilendarski University of Plovdiv. She has graduated in Ethnology and Sociology from the University of Plovdiv and holds a PhD in History of Technology from the Eindhoven University of Technology. Her PhD thesis is entitled Producing Bulgarian Yoghurt: Manufacturing and Exporting Authenticity. Her research interests are in the field of social studies of food, local and national identity construction, cultural heritage, and history of technology.
Email: elitsastoilova[at]uni-plovdiv.bg
