Getting Started on Mediterranean Cuisine

The Mediterranean diet is as diverse and varied as the languages and countries that surround the Mediterranean Sea. About 50 years ago, Mediterranean food attracted scientific attention when researchers noticed that people throughout Crete and southern Italy often lived well into their 80s and 90s without any sign of heart disease, cancer or other chronic ailments.

Traditional peoples who lived near the Mediterranean Sea had to eat food that they could grow in very dry, unfertile soil. What archaeologists refer to as the "Mediterranean triad" is made up of three foodstuffs: grains, particularly wheat and barley, olive oil, and grapes.

Some other common foods are apples and pears and figs and plums or prunes, raisins made from the grapes, dried green peas, lentils and chickpeas onions, carrots, garlic, cabbages, honey, herbs like dill, thyme, oregano, basil, and mint, nuts, particularly walnuts and chestnuts and acorns; cucumbers, eggs, yogurt and cheese, mostly from goats and sheep who also provided mutton and goat meat, and pork and ham and bacon, chicken, goose and duck, and fish, especially tuna. And believe it or not snails - people raised them in special snail gardens.

A traditional Mediterranean menu - lots of dense, whole grain peasant bread and pasta, seasonal vegetables and some cheese and fruit, all spiked with olive oil and washed down with red wine, has proven to be not only beneficial to one's health, but very tasty. Actually, with all the food items mentioned above it is not difficult to find items you need to maintain a Mediterranean Diet shopping on the internet.

Before you start to Google your way to a Mediterranean treat you might want to explore some recipe ideas first. In the Everything Mediterranean Cookbook, Culinary Institute of America graduate Dawn Altomari-Rathjen teams up with registered dietician Jennifer M. Bendelius to provide you with 300 delicious recipes.

Then when it's time to start actually shopping Tribe Mediterranean Foods is a great place to start. Based in Taunton, Massachusetts, Tribe Mediterranean Foods creates and distributes a highly popular line of Mediterranean food products that includes several flavors of hummus, tahini, tabouli and baba ganoush.

Tribe Mediterranean Foods introduced the industry's first nationally distributed Organic Hummus, certified as USDA organic by Quality Assurance International (QAI). Tribe's organic hummus products are USDA certified organic, trans-fat free, gluten-free, preservative-free, GMO-free, non-dairy, certified Kosher, vegan friendly and contain no saturated fats, cholesterol or hydrogenated oils. If you go to their website they also offer coupons for their hummus.

Some of the most important producers and companies of Mediterranean food and drinks in Greece can be found at Mediterraneandiet.gr . Here you can find distributors of Mediterranean foods and specialty's like: olives, olive oils, olive pastes, capers, Greek wines, herbs and spices.

Cheeses are an important part of many Mediterranean recipes and a great source for farm fresh is Coach Farms. While they are faithful to the traditional methods of the French farmstead cheese maker, Coach Farm is turning out authentic, artisanal goat cheeses and I don't think anyone at the table will mind.

Just remember, according to The American Heart Association there is no "Mediterranean Diet" because at least 16 countries border the Mediterranean Sea and diets vary between these countries and also between regions within a country. But there is common Mediterranean dietary foodstuffs that basically include a lot of fruits, vegetables, bread and other grains, nuts and seeds and lots of olive oil.

With a little bit of research and a lot of fresh food items you too can enjoy healthy, tasty Mediterranean cuisine.