This investigation contributes to studies of post-1945 Europe and the Cold War by examining the culture, economics, and politics surrounding the consumption of a single commodity in East Germany, coffee. Coffee was associated with many cultural values and traditions that became tied to the GDR's official image of socialism. When the regime's ability to supply this good was jeopardized in 1975–77, the government sought out new sources of coffee in the developing, so-called Third World. East Germany entered into long-term trade and development projects with countries such as Angola, Ethiopia, Laos, and Vietnam to secure sufficient beans to supply its own population – this article singles out the GDR's relationship with Laos for discussion. These trade deals connected East Germany to a much broader, globalizing economy, and led to certain lasting effects on the world coffee trade.

This article explores the ways in which the Bulgarian socialist regime integrated a newly elaborated culture of food and drink into its promises for the “good life” and a utopian future. With a focus on Black Sea coast tourism, it argues that the development of more refined food and drink offerings and public dining venues played a dual role of shaping and serving a modern socialist citizenry. With tourism as a major engine of the Bulgarian economy, catering to Bulgarian, Bloc, and Western tourists meant that creating a gastronomic utopia by the sea was part and parcel of “building” and showcasing socialism. This was intimately tied to bolstering state legitimacy through the provision of leisure and abundance, but also to a newly minted Bulgarian national cuisine. By the late 1970s and 1980s, however, the Black Sea tourist phenomenon both exhibited and exacerbated the problem of growing shortages and hence the deep crisis of the system, which collapsed in 1989.