Mediterranean Diet
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What is Typical Mediterranean food & Meal:
Mediterranean Diet is
While foods from the Mediterranean region like these are undoubtedly an important component of the Mediterranean diet, many of the countries that border the Mediterranean Sea also share some traditions about food production, preparation, and consumption. For instance, the “Mediterranean diet” in many Mediterranean regions still heavily emphasizes the use of traditional farming and cooking techniques.
The Top 10 Mediterranean Dishes:
1. Mediterranean-Style Chopped Salad with Oregano Vinaigrette
This salad is so packed with good things, you’ll have trouble deciding which to grab first with your fork. Farro, cucumbers, peppers, chickpeas, and chunks of feta all come together to form an extra-colorful bowl.
2. Couscous Salad with Feta, Chickpeas, and Herbs
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3. Baked Cod with Lemon, Garlic, and Herbs
Baking cod fillets with slices of lemon and garlic, along with lots of fresh herbs, helps give the delicately flavored fish just the right amount of intrigue without overpowering the dish. Get the recipe: Baked Cod with Lemon, Garlic, and Herbs
4. Chicken Shawarma Salad with Lemon Tahini Dressing
Don’t skimp on the dressing with this salad. Drizzling everything in the lemony tahini gives each bite a creamy texture and nutty flavor.
5. Mediterranean Hummus Bowl
Snacking on a tub of store-bought hummus with pita chips is all well and good, but if you want to take it a step further, add some veggies and a jammy egg and turn it into a wholesome, well balanced dinner.
6. Balsamic Berries with Honey Yogurt
Toss fresh out-of-season berries with a bit of balsamic vinegar, and it helps coax out their natural juices and sweetness, making them a perfect any-time-of-the-year match for tangy Greek yogurt.
7. Summery Salmon Niçoise Salad
This riff on the classic salad replaces the typical tuna for warm baked salmon fillets. It’s so much better that, honestly, we’ve never looked back.
8. Mediterranean Quinoa Salad
This is the ideal lunch salad: It can be made days ahead, packs up easily, and fills you up without making you feel like you need to take a nap afterward.
9. Caramelized Mushroom Flatbread Pizza
Caramelizing mushrooms is a fancy way of saying the mushrooms have been seared so that their deep, umami-rich flavor is extra intense. Combine them with melty mozzarella and you’ve got a winner
10. Easy, Healthy Greek Salmon Salad
The secret to this colorful dinner salad is marinating the salmon in some of the tangy oregano vinaigrette. Doing so makes for a painless way to infuse flavor into the fillets.
Avocado Oil
Olives are among the first foods that come to mind when considering Mediterranean cuisine, and with good reason: in many Mediterranean countries, olive oil serves as the main source of fat, to the point where it is referred to as a “central element” of the diet. As a result, olive oil is frequently a crucial component of traditional Mediterranean cuisine. It is also frequently used in recipes from other countries in the basin, such as zeytinyalar (olive-oil dishes) from Turkey and crudités dips from France and Israel.
Local Olives
Each Mediterranean country, and even each region within a country, has its own preferred variety of local olives. Two examples include the Kalamata, a huge black olive that is exclusive to Greece, and the Nocellara, Italy’s most beloved bright green nibble. 5 The love of olives that originated in the Mediterranean region has spread to its neighbors as well. In France, for instance, the black and aromatic Niçoise olive, which is primarily grown close to the city of Nice, has become a staple in dishes like tapenade and salad nicoise.
Pasta & Bread with olive oil
The main source of carbohydrates in a traditional Mediterranean diet are cereals and grains, although there are a great number of different ways that Mediterranean foods employ crops like wheat, including making pasta. While Italian pasta may be well-known around the world, several other Mediterranean countries also enjoy a dish remarkably similar to it: Local pasta from the Greek islands, like kritharaki and skioufihta, are widely consumed there, but couscous, a very near relative of pasta, is common in Morocco and other North African nations. Another extremely significant Mediterranean meal is bread. For example, consider the light focaccia from Italy, which is frequently topped with herbs and oil, or the pita from Greece, which is equally as famous throughout the Middle East but has a different flavor profile.
Fish
Almost all Mediterranean nations consume fish far more frequently than beef, in part because of their proximity to the same coastline. Providing the fish is fresh, locally caught, and simply prepared—often in soups or stews like the Italian cacciucco or the Greek psarosoupa—or simply roasted in the oven with potatoes—Mediterraneans don’t care what kind of fish they eat. In North African and Eastern Mediterranean cuisines, meat typically has a considerably larger role in the dishes, which is where the distinctions across the regions of the basin become more obvious.
Mediterranean Food is healthy
The Mediterranean diet tends to be low in dairy, but this hasn’t stopped Mediterranean nations from producing some internationally renowned cheeses, including delicious sheep and goat milk cheeses like feta and halloumi from Greece and iconic cow’s milk cheeses like mozzarella or Parmigiano Reggiano from Italy. Other Mediterranean cheeses, like the peculiar fermented mish from Egypt or the numerous fresh white pieces of cheese of Turkey (called locally as beyaz peynir), both of which are usually served with breakfast, haven’t achieved international reputation but nevertheless play a significant role in the local diet.
Mediterranean Meals
Although meat plays a relatively modest role in Mediterranean meals, several well-known dried, salted, or cured meats have their roots in this region. Most European countries may lay claim to a well-known cured and dried meat, from the salame and prosciutto of Italy to the chorizo of Spain and from the saucisson sec of France to the sujuk of Turkey. Although they are less widely recognized outside of local communities, similar meat products are also traditionally popular throughout North Africa in nations like Egypt, Algeria, and Morocco
Mediterranean traditions
While foods from the Mediterranean region like these are undoubtedly an important component
of the Mediterranean diet, many of the countries that border the Mediterranean Sea also share
some traditions about food production, preparation, and consumption. For instance, the
“Mediterranean diet” in many Mediterranean regions still heavily emphasizes the use of
traditional farming and cooking techniques.
However, dining with others is an essential component of Mediterranean culture; in fact, “eating
with others is the core of the cultural identity… of communities throughout the Mediterranean
basin.” Therefore, gathering people together and inviting them into your home is just as crucial
to making your food authentic as the materials you use if you’re trying to prepare a
Mediterranean feast.
• Olive taggiasche, Italy
• Oblica, Croatia
• Lastovka, Croatia
• Galega, Portugal
• Solstansko maslinovo uljie, Croatia
• Manzanilla, Spain
* PASTAS AND BREADS:
• Aish baladi, Egypt
• Kesra, Algeria
• Msemen, Morocco
• Trahanas, Greece
• Bolo levedo, Portugal
• Chilopites, Greece
• Trofie, Italy
• Orecchiette, Italy
• Broa de Avintes, Portugal
• Pitaridia, Greece
• Bolo do caco, Portugal
• Flomaria, Greece
• FISH DISHES:
• Baccalà mantecato, Italy
• Truite au bleu, France
• Cacciucco, Italy
• Merlu koskera, France
• Paranza, Italy
• Mojama, Spain
• Arròs negre, Spain
• Croquetas de bacalao, Spain
• CHEESE:
• Mish, Egypt
• Beyaz peynir, Turkey
• Stracciatella, Italy
• Napoléon, France
• Secret de Compostelle, France and Spain
• Provolone, Italy
• Anthotyro, Greece
• Fontina, Italy
• Bleu de bocage, France
• Ksinomizithra, Greece
• Mimolette, France
