You will either love it or hate it however, apparently it helps cure a hangover if eaten after waking up with that pesky headache and cotton mouth. The English translation of shkembe is tripe soup. Disgusted or intrigued, along with tripe, the soup is seasoned with garlic, hot red pepper and vinegar. It may pleasantly surprise you with its distinctive smell and taste.

While lyutenitsa may be a kids favourite, shkembe chorba is strictly the preferred territory of adults. Indeed, it takes more than a bit of guts to try this tripe soup, whether because tripe is a somewhat unusual offal to be used in a soup or because of the way shkembe chorba is customarily generously spiced. You are expected to add vinegar, oil, salt and crude pepper to taste – though you will discover that to Bulgarians this usually means in generous quantities.

Cherished as a hangover remedy, shkembe chorba is offered by many small restaurants and is often consumed by companies during the early hours of the morning right after a night of binge drinking. And because shkembe chorba is very difficult to eat without a cold beer to accompany the hot sips, this anti-hangover strategy naturally fits with the fight fire with fire hangover cure that is a beer after a heavy night out.

This soup is an ideal Bulgarian lunch dish to fill up your stomach with a tasty broth. The traditional dish calls for mashed garlic, vinegar, a small amount of milk, and pork, beef, or lamb tripes, sometimes substituted with intestines.

In Bulgaria, its used to be a well-known soup only among blue-collar workers due to its high affordability. Some restaurants and shops only served shkembe chorba before the 1980s. During this period, fast-food chains began to replace those old-school eateries.

However, instead of being obsolete, shkembe chorba has shifted. Other cheap and moderate restaurants began to add it to their menu, and the dish became a Bulgarian culinary staple today.