It
is not about collard greens or any of the staples Americans typically consider Soul
Food. It is about the local cuisine that transcends religious and ethnic
differences in a provincial Bulgarian hamlet, as well as the spiritual fuel
that sustains the Muslim population during fasts. The villagers’ customs,
foibles, prejudices, and culinary arts are quietly captured in Tonislav Hristov’s
Soul Food Stories, which screens
during the 2014 San Francisco International Film Festival.
The
population of tiny Satovcha barely tops two thousand, but it is far from
homogenous. Pomacs (long-established Bulgarian Muslims), Orthodox Christians,
increasingly Evangelical Roma, and unreconstructed atheist Marxists all make up
a considerable percentage of the village. Despite religious and ideological differences,
Satovcha remains peaceful (so far), held together by shared meals (and arguably
a common sexism).
If
you like savory pastries than Bulgarian cuisine will look delicious. The women
of Satovcha seem to spend all their days cooking, so they have had time to hone
their skills. In contrast, the men specialize in looking so rustic and eccentric
we almost overlook how appalling some of their assertions truly are. The local
Communist Party hack is a case in point. He takes great pains to explain religion
was not oppressed during the old regime, but it would get you fired if you were
caught attending a house of worship. Okay, thanks for clearing that up.
Sadly,
the Roma are (once again) the only demographic group not given a real chance to
speak for themselves in Food.
Instead, Hristov shows them looking understandably confused as the local Korean
missionary gives a sermon in halting English that his translator only occasionally
bothers to interpret for the flock. You start to wonder who is kidding whom.
Yet,
by and large, Food is a hopeful film.
Satovcha stands in marked contrast to experience of the former Yugoslavia. Notwithstanding
the frustrations of minor apparatchiks, the fall of Communism also comes across
as a good thing on balance, allowing our kind-of, sort-of POV couple to return
to their traditional Pomac names and to freely practice their religion.
