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 – 5 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)

Egyptian dinning

Turkish dishesSyrian 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 re-imported 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 ItalyNorth: 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 better coffee; more meat dishes;South: parched, sparsely settled and historically poorer; using olive oil (cheaper), dried tubular pastas like spaghetti and macaroni, more robust and highly seasoned; veal is female calf, male kept as drafting animal; drink 1/5 of coffee that northerner does; fish dishes;Foundations of Italian cooling are the three customs:Etruscans (the north)Greeks (the south)Saracens (the south)

Saracens

Greek

Etruscans

Tribes

Veneti

Stone Age

Origin of the three main influences

Etruscans: 3 theories:(1) Entered Italy from some

unspecified territory to the north

(2) it has always been there (migrate from nowhere)

(3) From Lydia (similar religions)

Greeks andSaracens: came from east end of

Mediterranean where countries shared the same general type of cooking (Byzantine)

Saracens

Greek

Etruscans

Tribes

Veneti

Stone Age

Trademark food and foreign influences

• Etruscans: polenta – a mush made from grain like porridge or crumbly cake (in northern Italy once occupied by Etruscans)

• Greek: fish chowder now called brodetto.• Saracens: Millefoglie, rice, ice cream and sherbet

(learned from Hindus who learned from Chinese), drying fruit, meat drying and salting

• America: contributed to new material-tomato, maize, turkey, potato, peanut, vanilla, chocolate, Virginia strawberry, string bean, pumpkin, Jerusalem artichoke.

• Normans: salt cod

Tuscany: the heart of Italy• Purest Italy cooking

• Great attention paid to high quality raw material

• Simple and avoid unnecessary complications

• Beef: heaviest and tallest breed in the world-named Chianina

• Beans: appears in every stage of the meal except desert: 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

heat-cured pork sausage which incorporates at least 15% small cubes of pork fat (principally the hard fat from the neck of the pig). It is delicately flavored with spices, including whole or ground black peppers, myrtle berries, nutmeg, coriander and pistachios)

• Cheese: parmesan cheese (the husband of Italy cooking).

• Vinegar: aceto Balsamico (herbs perfumed vinegar).

Parma Ham• Parma ham is a type of dry-cured ham from the Parma region of Italy. It is one of the most well-known

varieties of prosciutto crudo, an uncooked ham • Parma ham is cured in Parma because of the unique geography of the place, which ensure constant

gentle breezes coming across the hills. More than two-hundred curing facilities are found in Parma, and all the world’s Parma ham is made there.

• Parma ham begins its life as a Duroc or Landrance pig, the only breeds which are allowed to be turned into Parma ham. They are fed on full cereal diets, often enriched with whey to give them added calcium. The pigs are sent to butchered and sent to the curing house at about 26-30 pounds (12-14kg). They’re then trimmed down to the classic ham leg shape. The ham skin is then wet salted, and the flesh itself is dry salted, and the entire leg is hung in a refrigerator for about a week at between 34 and 39 degrees Fahrenheit (1 to 4 degrees Celsius), with humidity of around 80%.

• At the end of the week, the excess salt is brushed off, and the Parma ham is put through a round of quality control, where experts appraise the scent and texture of the ham. Ham that makes it through this quality control is salted again, and placed in another cold chamber, this time at 34 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) with humidity of 60%. The ham remains in this chamber for two weeks.

• Next, the Parma ham is rested. It is placed in a chamber with humidity of 75% between 34 and 41 degrees Fahrenheit (1 to 5 degrees Celsius) and left there for eight weeks or so. The hams are then rinsed with warm water, to get rid of most of the excess salt. When they’ve dried, they are placed in the actual curing chambers, where they will remain for three more months. The curing chambers are not artificially cooled or humidified, and are at the whim of nature to dictate how the ham cures, assisted a bit by people opening and closing windows to regulate the temperature as best they can.

• During this penultimate curing the Parma ham is also covered in a mixture called suino, which contains salt and pepper, lard, and occasionally a bit of ground up rice. This keeps flies off of the meat, and stops it from drying too quickly. Coating the meat is all done by hand, and there are scores of workers whose job consists solely of dipping their fingers in the lard pots and reapplying the mixture.

• Finally, the Parma ham is moved into a cellar, where it will finish curing in the dark. They’ll stay in the dark for a year or more, before being tested for final quality, and ultimately branded with a seal of approval. Parma ham in Europe is usually sold on the bone, where it will keep maturing and becomes even more delicate over time. For export, however, it is usually 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 lightly-

breaded 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 cod, eels, oyster, crabs, sardines, mackerel, sole, crayfish, mussels, cuttlefish family

Genoa and Liguria

• Herbs and vegetables 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 meal before or after opera)

• Wheat, millet, barley, sorghum, rice are staple.

• Plenty of pasture land produces butter, cheese: Gorgonzola (creamy), Bel Paese (soft), mascarpone (fresh cream cheese); branzi and taleggio (soft, runny), crescenza, robiola,

Milan and Lombardy-continue

• Ossobuco: veal shank

• Panettone: egg-yellow cake

• Stufato (beef stew)

• Risotto alla milanese: rice dish

• Mostarda (fruit with syrup) and torrone (almond flavored dessert)

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 con 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.