There is an increasing tendency toward the consumption of red meat in Bulgaria, which is currently maintained by the rising import of fresh and frozen meat and processed meat products [54]. Our latest research has also shown that Bulgarians have one of the highest preferences for red meat over poultry and other white meats in Southern Europe [55,56]. This was well reflected by the number of traditional meat products made of red meats, presented in the current study. The number of herbal ingredients and their combinations were the most diverse in traditional meat products made of pork—the preferred meat type of most of the Bulgarian participants in this study. Family recipes, handed down through generations, and the availability of ingredients, especially in the rural areas, have allowed the preservation of the knowledge for the preparation of dry-fermented meat products all over the country.

Most of the currently assessed herbal ingredients are popular in the cuisines of other Mediterranean and Balkan countries as well, and even imported ones such as black pepper and cumin are regarded as “traditional” and are commonly used in the preparation of traditional meat products around Europe [14,57,58,59,60]. Herbal ingredients in Bulgarian traditional meat products rarely included oregano, rosemary or thyme, which are commonly used for meat flavoring around Europe [61]. Vignolo et al. suggested that the combination of garlic, cumin and black pepper was responsible for the typical flavor of “Bulgarian loukanka”, a generic description of one of the industrialized types of sausages not related to any specific region in Bulgaria [62]. Since the industrial versions were and still are more easily available to foreign consumers, the aforementioned pepper–cumin–garlic flavor formula, typical for “Bulgarian loukanka”, has probably appropriated a “signature role” in the Bulgarian tradition in dry-cured meat production. However, our field observations failed to spot artisanal/homemade products with such a combination of spices. On the contrary, only 13 of the studied artisanal/homemade products contained any Allium in the recipe. Overall, the artisanal/homemade products more often contained three or more herbal ingredients, which could be related to the quest for antimicrobial and antiradical activity contained by the essential oils and other phytochemicals [3,63,64,65,66]. Studied industrial versions of Bulgarian traditional meat products contained simpler combinations of two–three herbs and/or spices, used both in pork and veal meat products. While such an approach ensures more convenient ingredient supply and safety management, it hardly allows the creation of unique memorable flavors that represent local tradition and terroir. For instance, historical studies on the artisanal manufacturing of Gornooryahovski sudzhuk, one of the popular and frequently exported Bulgarian food products, revealed a variety of recipes recorded before 1944, with different numbers and combinations of spices, including nutmeg, allspice, cinnamon, etc. [67]. However, nowadays, the recipe for Gornooryahovski sudzhuk (prepared only from veal), registered as PGI, has only three spices—cumin, savory and black pepper.

Some traditional products made for personal use were found to contain large amounts of salt, nitrates and nitrites, and thus more efforts are needed to raise the awareness of the producers for using traditional recipes on topics related to healthy lifestyle [68]. Additionally, the promotion of the use and combination of different spices and preservation techniques can ensure the production of safer and healthier products. Usage of spice mixtures together with Alliums implied that Bulgarian traditional production of dry-cured sausages relied on the herbal ingredients, not only for their organoleptic features but also for their antibacterial, antifungal and insecticide properties [69,70]. This was especially important in the warmer southern parts of the country, where we found five of the seven meat products with four herbal ingredients that are known for their antimicrobial and antifungal properties [15,18,71]. Leek was preferred for the preparation of traditional sausages, a tradition also popular in northern parts of Greece. Leek contributes to the preservation of the fresher red color of the meat after drying due to the high nitrate content, especially in the pseudostem [72]. Onion was less popular, present in Novozagorska lukanka and Kalbasa. The latter shared some similarities with the Polish smoked Kielbasa and Slovenian Kranjska klobasa, which typically contain garlic instead of onion [73,74]. Natural phenolic compounds found in many Alliums and Lamiaceae species possess considerable antibacterial, antifungal and antioxidative activities that have made them very popular in meat processing [61].

The observed usage of three or more spices that are mixed with the sausage meat is not so typical for preserved meats produced in Europe, Africa and the Middle East [8,14,62,75,76,77]. Capsella bursa-pastoris could be regarded as the most unusual aromatic herb, used locally in Strandzha Mt., Southeast Bulgaria, in the preparation of pork sausages. Shepard’s purse is known as a leafy vegetable in other cultures and it is recognized for its antimicrobial and antioxidant properties [78,79,80]. However, this is its first mention in the preservation of meat products, which requires additional exploration. On the other hand, the most common spices used in Bulgarian traditional meat products were black pepper and paprika powder. They are important not only as taste and flavor enhancers, but also because of their health benefits. Black pepper is a universally known spice and medicinal plant with antimicrobial, antifungal and anti-inflammatory effects, due to the rich variety of piperidines, phenolics, flavonoids, proanthocyanidins, etc. [81,82]; meanwhile, an oil-soluble fraction of paprika powder contains predominately capsaicin, capsanthin and capsorubin, which, as a complex, contribute to the safety of the traditional products, as strong antioxidant and antimicrobial agents, while bringing its natural flavoring and coloration [83]. Savory and paprika powder, the most often used herbal ingredients of local origin in Bulgarian dry-cured products, are traditionally used in several European meat products with protected geographical origin (e.g., Iberian Chorizo, Slavonian Kulen and Morcilla de Burgos and others) [60,84,85]. Satureja species are among the popularly used herbs for seasoning of fresh and cooked meat products in some parts of Southern Europe and Western and Middle Asia due to their pronounced antimicrobial activity, attributable to the high content of carvacrol and thymol [86,87]. However, S. montana L., that is used in the Balkans and in Spain, is currently added to the meat products as an essential oil and/or extract [88]. Both were reported to express strong antioxidant and antibacterial activity against Salmonella, Listeria and Staphylococcus due to the presence of carvacrol and p-cymene [88,89]. In Bulgarian traditional meat products, dry S. hortensis herbage was found in recipes with both pork and/or beef/veal meat. Main constituents of S. hortensis essential oil (carvacrol, thymol, γ-terpinene and p-cymene) were reported to vary significantly depending on a number of factors, such as climate, genetic factors, harvesting times, etc., with carvacrol being the most important element for the antimicrobial activity of the essential oils [87,90,91]. Overall, the aromatic composition and major constituents of Satureja oils show significant intra- and interspecific variation [92]. Therefore, the foreign savory spices or similar of unknown origin could easily compromise the typical features of the final products, which underlines the importance of locally sourced ingredients for traditional products, especially when they are produced in greater volumes for the market [93]. Another carvacrol-rich herbal ingredient in the Bulgarian traditional sausages, far less frequently used than savory, is Origanum vulgare ssp. hirtum (Link) Ietsw. Carvacrol and thymol are one of the most important compounds in oregano essential oils that contributes to its strong antibacterial and antioxidative effect and has made it popular in the meat processing industry in the recent years [94,95]. Inter- and intra-populational diversity of the essential oil compounds of the Bulgarian populations of O. vulgare ssp. hirtum was found to be high, with most of the plants belonging to the carvacrol chemotype [96,97]. The collection of O. vulgare ssp. hirtum for the market is currently banned in Bulgaria due to its limited distribution in the country and the overexploitation of the wild populations [98]. Small-scale traditional food production in Bulgaria fostered the domestication of the threatened O. vulgare ssp. hirtum in home gardens, which contributes to the alleviation of the pressure on the natural populations [99].

In the artisanal/homemade pork meat products, the number of herbal ingredients included varied from one to five, and only one product had no herbal ingredients in the curing mixture (Elenski but ham). Products made of beef/veal, buffalo, horse or mutton meat, and especially the whole-muscle cuts, had fewer herbal ingredients. Topical application of pungent dry herbs and spices is more usual for the dry whole-muscle cuts that are first salted and then covered with specific mixes [8,100,101]. Traditional Bulgarian products from whole-muscle meat cuts are prepared in a similar way to the pastirma/bastirma method known also from the Middle Eastern and Mediterranean regions [8,77]. However, the currently assessed products made of mutton/lamb and beef, favored in Muslim communities, were predominantly cured with plain sea salt without application of any spices or herbs. The latter implies that they were probably destined for further culinary preparations. According to ethnographic data from first half of the twentieth century in the Central Balkan Mts., pastarma products, made of mutton, goat and buffalo meat, prepared by dry- and wet-curing in brine, were also used for the preparation of various dishes [102].

The same preservation method is used for the studied whole-muscle pork meat products; however, those were almost always flavored with spice mixtures. In this sense, the addition of herbs and spices categorizes these traditional meat products as products of higher value, as delicacies or mezze (starters), served and consumed in a celebratory manner [103,104]. This could be also related to the traditional practices of presenting sausages and other valuable traditional foods as part of the customary expressions of gratitude and appraisal during different occasions, which was practiced by some of our respondents. In this sense, Bulgarian artisanal and homemade dry-cured meat products cannot be considered as processed products that utilize low-quality cuts and other nonanimal ingredients, as they are in other European countries [7], but as added-value products.