Mediterranean food

Mediterranean food •Three continents (Europe, Asia, Africa), 15 countries •Dry hot summers and cool pleasant winter •Staples are wheat and rice •Olive groves, fig trees, vineyard, almonds, walnuts, lemons, apricots, etc are characteristic of local produce •Traditional Mediterranean diet derives 40% of total daily calories from fat yet, people have low incidence of chronic diseases and high life expectancy rates •Emphasis on variety of minimally processed and seasonally fresh locally grown food •Olive oil, grains (spaghetti), fruits, vegetables, legumes, nut oils and less red meat are consumed Plus fish was eaten a few times a week (Omega-3 fatty acids) Moderate consumption of wine (1-2 cups per day) and cheese Healthy Food Habits Olives •The first olive tree sprung in the greater Mediterranean basin •Greece was the first to started cultivation of Olive tree in 3500BC (Crete island) •Olive tree became a symbol in ancient Greece and olive oil used not only for its valuable nutritional quality but also for medicinal purpose •Olive tree branch was awarded to Olympic game winner along with olive oils – tons for the first place Olive Oil • Rich in vitamins A, B-1, B-2, C, D, E, and K and iron • Beneficial to digest system; acts as a mild laxative, and benefit people with heart diseases; protects the stomach from ulcers; treat urinary tract infections and gall balder problems, slows down aging processes • Beauty oil-body’s cells incorporate the fatty acids from oil, making arteries more supple and skin more lustrous • Many herbs and spices added to olive oil to prevent it from being oxidized and improve its flavor (negative affect olive oil: garlic, onion, peppers, peels of acidic citrus fruit) Three Culinary regions • North Africa (Morrocco: spices boldly flavors food) • Eastern Mediterranean (Egypt, Greece, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey) • Southern European (Italy, France, Spain: wine and herb are central) Turkish dishes Egyptian dinning Syrian food Italy Primary Mediterranean climate, alpine climate in far north and hot and dry in the south arable land: 31% permanent crops: 10% permanent pastures: 15% forests and woodland: 23% other: 21% (1993 est.) Cooking of Italy • Is the cooking of regions, each has distinct its style and cultural (only after 1861 these regions were became Italy) • Two dominant aspects of landscape: Mountain and Sea Long growing season permit lush profusion of fruit and vegetables • Basic difference between north and south (by geography and historical reasons) Italian have continuous conscious intensive attention to growing vegetables • First agricultural books were written by Romans • Local specialty: best asparagus, spinach (better than French which is better than American), rice was so good that was smuggled illegally out of the country by Thomas Jefferson; plum tomato was reimported to U.S; Italian names of vegetables: broccoli, zucchini, fava beans, tender tasty peas (petits pois was named by French by was from Italy); • Because of good quality vegetables, cooking veg Is a simplest treatment The food of Italy is a function of the history of Italy North: prosperous, fertile, industrialized and affluent; using butter as cooking fat, flat fresh noodles made with eggs are favorite form of pasta; veal is male calf (female kept for milking); more and Tribes better coffee; more meat dishes; South: parched, sparsely settled and historically poorer; using olive oil Etruscans (cheaper), dried tubular pastas like spaghetti and macaroni, more robust and highly seasoned; veal is female calf, male kept as drafting Greek animal; drink 1/5 of coffee that northerner does; fish dishes; Stone Age Foundations of Italian cooling are the three customs: Etruscans (the north) Greeks (the south) Saracens Saracens (the south) Veneti Naples and the Deep South • • • • • • • Culinary capital of the south Pizza (27 different kinds), macaroni, spaghetti Classical pizza is a disk of rough leavened dough, saturated with olive oil, and filled with diced mozzarella cheese (buffalo milk), bits of fresh tomato or tomato paste, oregano (or basil or other herbs), an usually anchovy fillets (sometime garlic is added) Wheat, maize, millet, oyster cultivation Favor vegetables are tomatoes, eggplant, artichokes, and peppers Fish stews or vegetable soup with pasta (inland areas) Sweets: sfogliatelle (cream or chocolate or jam inside), babá (rum cake), ice creams The islands • Sicily: a mountainous island; Sardinia: a rolling land of low hills • Staple: pasta and bread and imaginative efforts to make a little go a long way • Tuna and swordfish, and other all kinds of fish, shell fish; anchovy is a favor • sheep, wine, beef, pork and lamb (not much meat in Sicilian’s diet though) • Corda : sheep tripe grilled or stewed with peas and beans • Casu marzu: rotten cheese (worm filled) • Fiore sardo: Sardinian’s preferred cheese (from Sardinian sheep) • Pasta sarde (pasta with sardines), farsu magru (beef or veal roll stuffed with hard broiled eggs and spices), caponata (eggplant with tomato sauce) Three key techniques for preparing base • Battuto: comes from the verb battere, means “to strike” Cut-up (finely) mixture of ingredients such as lard, parsley, onion, garlic, celery, carrot, etc • Soffritto: Battuto is sautéed in a pot or skillet until onion becomes translucent (first into pot) and garlic (second) becomes colored a pale gold • Insaporire:”bestowing taste” It adds usually vegetables, which is critical ingredient in most first courses to the soffritto until they are completely coated with the flavor of the base May also include grounded meat Components • • • • • • Anchovies: dissolving into cooking juices of a roast, sauce for pasta, with mozzarella, dips for raw vegetables, green sauces served with boiled meats or fish Balsamic vinegar: specialty in the province of Modena (north of Bologna), use sparingly, a few drops on the top for final touch Basil for pesto; Bay leaves in pasta sauces for preserved foods, marinades meat for barbecue Beans: soup Bottarga: roe of the female thin-lipped gray mullet, which has been extracted with its membrane intact, salted, lightly pressed, washed and dried in the sun It is spicy and briny, added to green salad, boiled cannellini, or serve as appetizer on thin, toasted rounds of buttered bread with a slice of cucumber, grated and tossed in pasted (never cooked) • • • • • • • Components (continue) Bread crumbs: made from good stale bread with nothing added, very dry and gummy, tossed in pasta Broth: used for risotto, soups, braising meat and vegetables Made principally meat and some bones veal, beef, chicken) Capers: in sauces for pasta, meat, fish, in stuffing's Fontina: unpasteurized milk of cows that graze on mountain meadows in the Alpine region of Italy that adjoins France and Switzerland Melting in fonduta, over gratinéed asparagus, bind a slice of proscuotto to a sautéed scallop of veal Garlic Marjoram: herb (sweet pine and citrus flavor) used in pasta sauce, savory pies, stuffed vegetables, seafood salad Mortadella: sausage Components (continue) • • • • • • • • • • • • Buffalo-milk mozzarella Nutmeg Extra virgin olive oil Pancetta: beacon Parmesan Flat-leaf parsley Black papper Dried porcini mushrooms Proscutto: salted and air cured hog’s thigh or ham Radicchio: bright-red veg Radicchietto: small/young greens rice Components (continue) • • • • • • • • Rocotta: recooked cheese Romano cheese: from sheep milk, sharp and pungent Rosemary Sage Tomatoes Truffles: underground fungi, developed close the roots of oaks, poplars, hazelnut trees and certain pines Tuna Veal scaloppine appetizers Pesto Stuffed Potatoes Mushroom Risotto Sea Bass filet references • • • • http://www.mediterraneandiet.gr/oliveoilhistory.html http://www.trincoll.edu/~jvillani/Mediterranean.htm http://www.cuisinenet.com/glossary/med.html Hazan, M., 2003: Essential of Classic Italian Cooking Alfred A Knopf, New York, pp688 • Root, W., 1971: The Food of Italy Atheneum, New York, pp750 • Root, W., 1974: The Cooking of Italy Time-Life, New York, pp208 [...]... are basic to the local cuisine (little spices) “result of sailor’s yawning for fresh green foods when they return home” Pesto sauce (from basil and cheese) Staple food is from sea: mussels, clams (sea truffle-eaten raw with lemon juice), varieties of fish (dolphin) Ravioli (rubbish or leftover) Cappon magro (sea food and veg Salad) Milan and Lombardy • • • Slow cooking over a low steady fire (hearty... Stuffed Potatoes Mushroom Risotto Sea Bass filet references • • • • http://www.mediterraneandiet.gr/oliveoilhistory.html http://www.trincoll.edu/~jvillani /Mediterranean. htm http://www.cuisinenet.com/glossary/med.html Hazan, M., 2003: Essential of Classic Italian Cooking Alfred A Knopf, New York, pp688 • Root, W., 1971: The Food of Italy Atheneum, New York, pp750 • Root, W., 1974: The Cooking of Italy... it has always been there (migrate from nowhere) Tribes (3) From Lydia (similar religions) Greeks and Saracens: came from east end of Mediterranean where countries shared the same general type of cooking (Byzantine) Veneti Etruscans Greek Stone Age Saracens Trademark food and foreign influences • • • • • Etruscans: polenta – a mush made from grain like porridge or crumbly cake (in northern Italy once... stripped and packed, making it somewhat rougher in texture Venice and the Northeast • Austrian, German, Hungarian, Slavic, Balkan, and tourist influences • Herbs and spices; food are colorful • Known for scampi (preparing lightlybreaded seafood with butter and garlic) • Liver sautéed with onion; rice with peas (Risi e bisi); polenta • Numerous rice dishes, with meat, fish, vegetables • Fish: salt and dried... meats or fish Balsamic vinegar: specialty in the province of Modena (north of Bologna), use sparingly, a few drops on the top for final touch Basil for pesto; Bay leaves in pasta sauces for preserved foods, marinades meat for barbecue Beans: soup Bottarga: roe of the female thin-lipped gray mullet, which has been extracted with its membrane intact, salted, lightly pressed, washed and dried in the sun... fonduta, over gratinéed asparagus, bind a slice of proscuotto to a sautéed scallop of veal Garlic Marjoram: herb (sweet pine and citrus flavor) used in pasta sauce, savory pies, stuffed vegetables, seafood salad Mortadella: sausage Components (continue) • • • • • • • • • • • • Buffalo-milk mozzarella Nutmeg Extra virgin olive oil Pancetta: beacon Parmesan Flat-leaf parsley Black papper Dried porcini... soup, with beef, fish, vegetables, side dishes, etc Chianti: wine Bologna: northern center • • • • • • • • One of the flattest and fertile part of mountainous Italy (best Asparagus, cherries) Richest food (Bologna the fat) Veal delicate pasta: Tagliatelle, tortellino, Lasagne, cappelletti (the hat)-fresh made with eggs ham : Parma ham (more later) Sausages: mortadella (made of finely hashed/ground ... Moderate consumption of wine (1-2 cups per day) and cheese Healthy Food Habits Olives •The first olive tree sprung in the greater Mediterranean basin •Greece was the first to started cultivation... acidic citrus fruit) Three Culinary regions • North Africa (Morrocco: spices boldly flavors food) • Eastern Mediterranean (Egypt, Greece, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey) • Southern European (Italy,... (Italy, France, Spain: wine and herb are central) Turkish dishes Egyptian dinning Syrian food Italy Primary Mediterranean climate, alpine climate in far north and hot and dry in the south arable