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The seven-country study and the Cretan diet
Many years ago, Ansel Keys from the University of Minnesota and his colleagues studied the health of 16 regions in 7 countries around the world. The study lasted for 10 years, with over 50 years of follow up. They found that in Greece and specifically in Crete, compared to other Mediterranean countries, there were significantly…
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Traditional bread making in Crete
Besides her mission to birth and raise children, the Cretan village woman was involved in most farming activities and was responsible for all the tasks related to the wellbeing and nourishment of her family. The making of bread was one of those important tasks. The bread making process was tiring since it was done in…
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Types of bread at the Cretan bakery
Food and sharing a meal are an essential part of the Cretan culture and no meal can be called such if there’s no bread on the table. Bread has always played a key role in Cretan gastronomy, so much so that in often the word for bread, psomi, can even imply the whole meal. The…
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Bulbs – Vrovioi
The bulbs have been eaten by the Greeks since antiquity. In fact, it is characteristic that Greek cuisine uses them in the same way, thousands of years now, roasted and seasoned in vinegar.
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Rusks – Paximadia
The rugged landscape of Crete made travel difficult and time consuming for the people in centuries past. Often family members would be absent for days or weeks at a time tending their fields, livestock or exercising their civic duties in the urban areas, far from home. Fresh bread, a staple in the diet of those…
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Olive oil
Olive oil is simply the fatty liquid produced by crashing and squeezing the olive. There is nothing more added to the final product. It’s quality though is depended on a variety of factors that are tightly controlled by today’s producers, based on millennia of experience and tradition.
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Fish and fishing
The Cretans were throughout their history very close to the sea, and a large part of the inhabitants were either fishermen or merchants by sea, so both fish and seafood were usually a central part of Cretan cuisine. Cretan seas offer fish of supreme quality.
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Meat and livestock
Crete has always been a small livestock island. The traditional Cretan meat is lamb and goat to a lesser degree – in contrast to the rest of Greece, where pork and beef predominate.
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Cretan diet
Cretan diet Crete has one of the oldest and most delicious cuisines in the world. It is that long tradition of flavors, fragrances, materials and styles that has its origins in the Minoan era and is preserved until our days. According to the findings of the archaeological excavations, it seems that the ancient Cretans 4,000…
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Phyllo
Phyllo in Greek means leaf-like and it is the perfect word to describe the paper thin leafy sheets of dough which during the preparation process are sandwiched together and they puff up during cooking to resemble the thickly compressed pages in an old book.