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Greece is beautiful
Life is beautiful
Life in Greece is a 100 times beautiful…
A little about us Cretans...
LONG LIFE THANKS TO NATURAL CRETAN PRODUCTS
A Cretan enjoys authentic tastes.
Fresh greens are a way of life.
Uncooked fresh vegetables, olives, Cretan Rusk and uncooked greens are eating with a large amount of olive oil.
The favourite appetizer. Bread and olives
The favourite snack. A Cretan Rusk is drizzled with olive oil, and then covered in finely chopped tomatoes with a sprinkling of salt and oregano on the top.
Until recently Cretan Diet was simple and wholesome.
Natural products like olive oil, olives, fresh fruits & vegetables, bread, pulses, honey, cheese, a little meat and a little more fish.
A comparative study began in 1960 on behalf of 7 countries.
A group of about 700 men from the rural areas of each country under medical observation.
So far the group of Crete had the lowest percentage of death caused by heart attacks.
It has also shown the Cretan population to be the longest living one.
Year 1991, 31 years after the beginning of study, the 50% of the Cretan group were found to be still alive as opposed to Finland, where there wasn’t a single survivor.
Cretans have been able to enjoy such perfect health and long life thanks to their Natural Products, the Traditional Eating Habits and their Diet.
Today it is generally agreed that the people who lived on this blessed island Crete and ate according to the traditional ways and eating habits, had less chance of dying from heart diseases.
CRETAN FOOD WAY OF LIFE
Simple, basic, without over spicing and without a distortion of taste. So quite delicious.
A Cretan housewife never counts out of weighs ingredients. If you ask her how much flour is needed to make a certain dish, she will reply “as much as is needed “.
Cretan cooking has its roots way back in Ancient Minoan times.
We know that Minoans used olive oil just as Cretans do today.
We know that they stored their cereals and they enriched their meals with the pure wine just as Cretans do today.
CRETAN PRODUCTS / HISTORICAL REVIEW – EXPORTATION
During the Minoan times many of the local products brought in all the Mediterranean.
Most of the products were Agricultural, thought herbs also very much in demand.
During the Venetian period the list of products which were exported from Crete are the wonderful Cretan wines, honey. Olive oil, cheese and herbs.
NATURAL PRODUCTS
OLIVE OIL: Olive oil in salad, olive oil in food, olive oil in the traditional sweets.
It has been proven through several past and present studies that this excellent oil, plays an important role in warding off illnesses and in preserving our good health.
Contrary to other vegetable oils, olive oil is rich in monounsaturated fatty acids which are resistant to oxidation and diminish the amount of LDL cholesterol without affecting the HDL cholesterol.
OLIVE OIL AT BREAKFAST :
Try replacing the butter which you usually use at breakfast. Drizzle olive oil on the bread and sprinkle salt and oregano. A wonderful breakfast which is full of good health and taste.
Cretan breakfast also includes a herbal tea such as dittany of Crete.
FRUITS / GREENS / VEGETABLES Antioxidants at the table.
Cretans consume large quantities of fruit, greens and vegetables.
Never a day goes by, without one of these products being a part of a meal.
During the summer months, an abundance of grapes are consumed. There are vines through the island which produce a large variety of both grapes to be eaten and those to be pressed to make wine. A big part of those to be eaten are dried for when they are out of season or the winter time.
Crete produces a high quality dried grapes( sultana ).
Cooking is imagination.
Cretan Traditional cuisine and Greece generally based precisely on this
You don’t need to be a cook in order to cook a nice, well presented and tasty food or bread
It only needs your good mood.
Using ingredients you have anyhow at home you can prepare and cook a lot of nice, tasty, healthy snacks and food
Mood is that will give you the idea,
Mood characterizes the tasty fingers we say in Crete,
Mood puts two tenths of gram more salt and makes your food or bread tastier than somebody else’s.
Things are simple:
You are alone at home.
You feel like eat something fresh and tasty but not fancy not complicated something simple, easy making.
A little bit of flour, a little water, salt, and olive oil.
You make it fluid pulp, fry it and make beautiful, tasty pancakes.
Add rubbed courgette you have courgette pancake,
Chopped aubergine, pancake of aubergine,
A little of rubbed potato, potato pancake,
And much more…
A little butter, some salt, some olive paste or fresh tomato anything you have available; here is a nice, fresh, tasty, beautiful snack.
A glass of wine will elevate your spirit.
Adds little sugar and cinnamon, little syrup, and have a marvellous sweet.
With a liqueur, a cognac, a tea or coffee you closed your dinner.
Same ingredients
Add a little more flour and you have dough for unleavened bread.
Brown extra virgin olive oil and some chopped onions.
Mix it with dough and you have onion bread,
Mix the dough with few olives and here is the olive bread,
Some fresh pepper sweet or hot and you have pepper bread.
Replace with tomato, potato, aubergine, courgette, fresh onions, garlic, parsley, leek, mushrooms generally everything nature gives and you have hug number of different kinds of bread
Same way make innumerable “just like that” snacks
Jigger your boyfriend, girlfriend, your friends, and your self!!!
Just do it,
Simply dare.
I guess there is always a little rice somewhere in the house.
Obviously some vegetables.
Anything.
Chop vegetables in small pieces brown them with some olive oil, add a little rice, salt, pepper, fresh lemon juice and here it is
A fabulous, marvelous, tasty, savory risotto,
Just in few minutes.
Burn in the frying pan some plant butter,
Sprinkle the risotto you just prepare and here it is new flavor, a new dish, new result.
Pickles available.
Take few pieces.
Strain them.
Cover them with flour and fry them in olive oil.
Beautiful meal – snack.
Have a beer or a glass of wine and... What’s best?
Old dry bread.
Put it under water and wet it.
Squeeze it and put it in blender.
Add some olive oil, salt, vinegar and 2/3 gloves of garlic.
Just that.
Turn on blender. In few minutes you have a delicious dip / salad we call it “skordalia”.
Boil some fresh beans or courgettes, leek.
Anything you have available.
Add in the boiled vegetable the dip and you have a marvellous meal.
Get a slice of fresh bread.
Put a little of olive oil and a little of the skordalia dip and you have a nice snack.
Add in skordalia dip walnut. Different taste.
Almonds again different.
Present several snack just adding something…
Old dry bread again.
Put it under water and wet it.
Squeeze it and put it in a ball.
Rub with the grater one/two courgette, little onion, a little flour, olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper, oregano, cumin.
Mix them on dough.
Make small balls and you have courgette balls.
Fry them in olive oil and serve our friends or selves.
A glass of beer or wine or ouzo supplements the flavour
As I said above Cretan Traditional cuisine (where I come from) and Greece generally based precisely on this
For many generations through centuries,
Thought there weren’t Vegetarians,
Because there were under continuous occupation, they had no possibility using meat and animal products.
(Local people have a deep respect to the animals as animals providing the staff people used additive to their nutrition - as milk mixing with wheat creating frumenty etc.)
Thus the basic food emanated from the land as wild greens, legumes, vegetables, and certainly bread and many kind of Rusk.
Nothing better and tastier than a Cretan wheat Rusk, wetted in water, sprinkle with olive oil, some rubbed fresh tomato, a little salt and oregano. A complete meal joined by a glass of wine it satisfies and filling you absolutely actuates the heart as ancient Greeks said.
Just Try it.
I believe it’s hard to find Cretan Rusk in your place.
However you can find Wheat bread or barley bread.
Cut a fat slice of this bread sprinkle it with olive oil and rubbed fresh tomato, salt and oregano.
Eat it and just mail me your comments
Best regards
Portokalakis Giorgos
Porto Club travel services
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