Getting Started on Mediterranean Cuisine

The Mediterranean diet is as diverse and varied as the languages and countries that surround the Mediterranean Sea. About 50 years ago, Mediterranean food attracted scientific attention when researchers noticed that people throughout Crete and southern Italy often lived well into their 80s and 90s without any sign of heart disease, cancer or other chronic ailments.

Traditional peoples who lived near the Mediterranean Sea had to eat food that they could grow in very dry, unfertile soil. What archaeologists refer to as the "Mediterranean triad" is made up of three foodstuffs: grains, particularly wheat and barley, olive oil, and grapes.

Some other common foods are apples and pears and figs and plums or prunes, raisins made from the grapes, dried green peas, lentils and chickpeas onions, carrots, garlic, cabbages, honey, herbs like dill, thyme, oregano, basil, and mint, nuts, particularly walnuts and chestnuts and acorns; cucumbers, eggs, yogurt and cheese, mostly from goats and sheep who also provided mutton and goat meat, and pork and ham and bacon, chicken, goose and duck, and fish, especially tuna. And believe it or not snails - people raised them in special snail gardens.

A traditional Mediterranean menu - lots of dense, whole grain peasant bread and pasta, seasonal vegetables and some cheese and fruit, all spiked with olive oil and washed down with red wine, has proven to be not only beneficial to one's health, but very tasty. Actually, with all the food items mentioned above it is not difficult to find items you need to maintain a Mediterranean Diet shopping on the internet.

Before you start to Google your way to a Mediterranean treat you might want to explore some recipe ideas first. In the Everything Mediterranean Cookbook, Culinary Institute of America graduate Dawn Altomari-Rathjen teams up with registered dietician Jennifer M. Bendelius to provide you with 300 delicious recipes.