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Comment by mitko | Hacker News Reader

Bulgarian living in USA, here are my 2c - there is Bulgarian yogurt in USA - the one nearby store is the "White mountain" brand. It is a tad more sour than other yogurt but in unpleasant way at all, or maybe I'm biased to recognize it :).

I'm ashamed we Bulgarians haven't done better marketing of it as it is really good and superior than Greek. Everyone knows about Greek yogurt but nobody knows about Bulgarian * . I love Greek yogurt too, but the reason it's so thick is that it is strained.

Bulgarian yogurt derives its thickness and structure from the fermentation process, and good yogurt should not fall off if you turn the jar upside down.

* - at least in USA, in east Asia (Japan, Thailand in my experience) the most popular brand of yogurt is named "Bulgaria" and is in every 7/11 or supermarket.

EDIT: format of the asteriks

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Oooh story time: in Korea, the most famous brand of yogurt is named "Bulgaris" and its TV ads depict gorgeous valleys with medieval monasteries, where people make yogurt the old-fashioned way, and live happily ever after. Thanks to these ads, Koreans think all Bulgarians drink yogurt every day and live up to a hundred years. Or something like that.

And then another yogurt company decided to market a new brand of yogurt... by naming it... (drum roll please...) "Bulgaria"!

Of course the first company sued the second company. And then the Bulgarian embassy weighed in, supporting the second company, because it turned out that the first company was using yogurt-making germs imported from Germany!

And then the court decided for the first company, essentially declaring that the nation of Bulgaria, sadly, does not own the name "Bulgaria" (or "Bulgaris", or Bulga-whatever) in Korean trademark system. (But don't quote me on that. IANAL.) The whole affair was very entertaining.

> Koreans think all Bulgarians drink yogurt every

I'm not sure about ethnic Bulgarians but ethnic Turks in Bulgaria consume yoğurt every day. There is always yoğurt in their kitchen.

Turks, coming from the East, would be known to use and consume yogurt regularly, as do so many asianic cultures, in their food for taste and to balance the lit-ass spices (technical term for hot-ass and stanky-ass).

Most Bulgarians eat "кисело мляко" (sour milk) every day, some mix it with water + some salt to make "айрян", which is a drink :-) The so called "yogurt" has nothing to do with "кисело мялко". I am not saying that yogurt is bad, it's just some powder milk + emulgators + sweeteners, produced by companies like Danone, Nestle etc. We have hundreds of brands, but only a few produce the "real deal"...free market, you know :-)

Koreans think all Bulgarians drink yogurt every day and live up to a hundred years.

After having a Bulgarian boss and a Bulgarian girlfriend, I must say Koreans are up to something.

Your boss and your girlfriend were 100 years old?

They looked like the kind of persons that can have the same drink everyday for a century :)

To avoid misunderstandings: they weren't related but they both were extremely self-disciplined, stubborn and healthy.

I love Bulgarian Yoghurt but the lack of variety of the mass-produced yoghurt is unfortunate.

In Turkey, yoghurt is consumed in enormous quantities. Here is an ad and this is a typical size yoghurt sold in the shops(anywhere from 1.5Kg to 3Kg): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anlWAx9-3Kg

Variety is huge, from traditional to premium fatty yoghurt, there's something for everyone. For example, this one ise considered to be one of the best mass produced varieties(That's a fatty crust that forms naturally over the yoghurt): http://galeri2.uludagsozluk.com/207/tikveşli-altın-kaymaklı-...

Ayran(add water and salt to the yoghurt, stir thoroughly) is considered the national beverage. Again, consumed in enormous quantities, much more popular than Coca-Cola.

Living abroad can be a challenge for Turks and Bulgarians because the yoghurt sold abroad hardly matches the stuff back home.

It's a little sad how hard it is to find yoghurt in the US that has more than trace fat content. Almost everything in the grocery store is fat-free, or 2% fat. In my area, the only acceptable Greek yoghurt is the unflavored Cabot, at something like 10% fat - they don't have to add flavorings and extra sugar to make up for the lack of fat content.

It's super sad. It's the fat that makes it yoghurt, but since Americans in general don't have yoghurt culture (pun intended), they don't know the difference between real yoghurt and milk with gelatin.

I have pretty much resigned and I'm buying Yoplait 2%. It's ok. But the real crazy thing is that if you buy Yoplait fruit yoghurt in France, it tastes so much better than their American version. Same company, but they have also resigned to creating something that fits the American palate and are selling that instead of the real deal. :-(

Check out Trader Joe's European Style Yogurt. It's my favorite yogurt ever.

And the sad thing is that many people still think that the "fat free" stuff with heaps of sugar is somehow healthier....

I was in the same boat so I started buying quarts of cream. Put yogurt into a bowl, add some cream and mix with a spoon, add berries or a dash of cinnamon or whatever for color and you're set!

Have you ever thought about making your own?

It's surprisingly easy. I have ulcerative colitis and a friend recommended diy yogurt. It's not a silver bullet but it helps.

Im making some now with whole milk, and starter cultures I got from yogurmet,and an anova sous vide circulator.

Get milk to 180 Drop to 115 Add culture Keep at 115 for 24 hrs Put in fridge

First time I tried it I think I finished a half gallon in 2 days.

Greek here. Greek yoghurt is not strained. The "Greek yoghurt" sold outside Greece, is. In Greece unstrained yoghurt from sheep or cow milk is sold in supermarkets (and everywhere else) alongside the strained cow milk yoghurt people outside Greece are familiar with and know as the only "Greek yoghurt". To Greeks, that "Greek yoghurt" is "bag yoghurt" (because it's strained inside a cheesecloth bag).

Btw, that "Greek yoghurt" is, 90% of the time, Total by Fage (Total is the name of the product, Fage the brand), including the ones that come together with a pot of jam on the side, as immortalised by Silicon Valley's Erlich Bachman:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR_taax1TUc

Unless it's Greek style yoghurt which is invariably exactly as wrong as it sounds.

Very interesting, do you know where I can learn more truthful about the OG Greek yogurt. Does it have similar thick texture? I'm only finding vaguely trustworthy results and stories in google.

These were interesting:

http://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/2014/03/24/greek-yogurt-pr... - how the marketing of Greek yogurt started by Chobani, and legal battle with Fage

https://www.olivetomato.com/will-the-real-greek-yogurt-pleas.... - about straining removing the whey from the milk

It’s very thick, and the best of it is a mix of cow and sheep/goat milk. When I lived and worked in Cambridge, MA in the US I used to go to a local shop with the finest yogurt I’ve had outside of Greece (I miss it!). A shop called Sophia’s, run by you guessed it, Sophia, and they made their own yogurt. It’s thick, as in you can hardly shake it off a spoon thick, and very tangy. Compared to something like Fage, it’s less of a “gel” and more thick, and Fage tastes bland by comparison.

With honey, it’s the best thing in the world. Actually it’s still there according to the site, and according to the site it is strained.

http://www.sophiasgreekpantry.com

Article talking about straining:

http://www.ediblenetwork.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/8/files/im...

... perhaps it should be called macedonian yogurt and this would appeal to greeks and bulgarians alike...

It'd be more safe to generalize it as Balkan.

White Mountain Bulgarian yogurt is superb. I ran into it coincidentally a few years ago while looking for yogurt and bought it because it is an Austin company. I have been a fan since even though it is typically priced approximately 2x compared to other brands (the glass jar probably adds to costs.) Edit: While it's true that it is more sour than other brands, once one expects such full-bodied flavor from a yogurt, all other taste bland and pointless.

Second Bulgarian Seal of Approval for White Mountain. It's available in Whole Foods, at least in California. There is also a NJ company that that sells a Bulgarian yogurt on the east coast.

Some Whole Foods also sell this brand in a gallon variant, for the fanatic.

I'm not remotely Bulgarian, but White Mountain is absolutely my favorite yogurt. When I lived where I could obtain it, I would regularly eat my way through one of the really big jars of it. I think it was most of a gallon? Good with everything, tangy, delicious. By contrast, the Greek yogurt craze resulted in a lot of sour, oddly gummy, weirdly pasty products. White Mountain is a whole other food.

Yaourt bulgare ( http://www.biodistrifrais.com/yaourt-bulgare-nature-2x125g-p... ) are also common in France !

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