Our destination, the isle of Rab, lay before us, the mountains bare as Krk, its shores green as spring . . . but the scent of myrtle and rosemary and thyme was as strong and soothing a delight as sunshine.
—Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcons: A Journey Through Yugoslavia
Land of Albania let me bend mine eyes
on thee, thou rugged nurse of savage men!—Lord Byron, “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”
Istria lies in the northeast corner of the Adriatic where the Apennine and Balkan peninsulas meet. Most of Istria is part of present-day Croatia, except for the far north which belongs to Slovenia. Istria’s strategic position at the “gateway to the Adriatic” has made it a battleground for invading peoples for much of its history. Around 900 B.C. Istria was inhabited by an Illyrian tribe, the Histri, who gave Istria its name. Istria flourished under the Romans as an important trade center, exporting Balkan olive oil, wine, and walnuts to other parts of Europe. In the centuries that followed the fall of the Roman Empire, Istria was overrun by the Visigoths, Huns, Slavs, Franks, Germans, and Austrians. From the fifteenth century, it was divided between Venice and Austria. It was the Venetians who first introduced foodstuffs from the New World—haricot beans, pumpkins, and squash. (Corn was not introduced until the seventeenth century, via Egypt, Romania, and Hungary.) Venetian rule lasted nearly four hundred years until Napoleon conquered Venice in 1797. After Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo in 1815, Istria became part of the Austro-Hungarian empire until the end of World War I. After the war, Istria was given to Italy, where it was incorporated into the province of Venezia Giulia. It was not until the end of World War II that Istria was finally united with the Kingdom of the South Slavs, or Yugoslavia. Even today, most Istrians speak Italian and retain strong cultural links to Italy.
Istrian cooking is a mix of Italian and central European cuisines. All kinds of pasta dishes are made, especially krafi and zlikofi (ravioli) and fuzi (homemade noodles). Fuži are often served with truffles that are found in the region around Koper (Capodistria) in the northwest. Istrians are also fond of thick vegetable soups similar to Italian minestroni, which usually include potatoes, cabbage, herbs, dried beans or chickpeas, and pasta or barley. Zgroub or zgroubi (a thin cornmeal or buckwheat porridge) is often served for breakfast. One of the glories of the Istrian kitchen is struccolo or štrukli (a kind of strudel), which may be baked, boiled, or steamed. Struccoli are made with various stretched, rolled, or yeasted doughs. Fillings include potatoes, rice, spinach, or pujine (a fresh cheese similar to Italian ricotta). Sweet versions are made with apples, pears, cherries, plums, or apricots. Other desserts of note include buzolai (ring-shaped biscuits dusted with powdered sugar), gibaniča (a rich layered pastry filled with apples, walnuts, raisins, poppy seeds, and cinnamon), palačinke (jam-filled pancakes), and all kinds of fritule (sweet fritters) that usually include raisins, pine nuts, candied citron, and grated chocolate.
Dalmatia consists of a narrow coastal strip that stretches along the Croatian coast from Pag Island to the borders of Montenegro. This coastal strip (seventy miles wide in the north and only ten miles wide in the south) is backed by the Dinaric Alps—a bare wall of limestone mountains that run parallel to the coast for hundreds of miles. Throughout Dalmatia’s history, this mountain wall has made access to the hinterland very difficult, which is why the Dalmatian people have always been more influenced by the sea and Italy than their Slavic neighbors in the interior. Dalmatia’s rugged coastline with its numerous bays and inlets, and hundreds of offshore islands, is probably the most dramatic in the Mediterranean. Like Istria, its coastal towns—with their arcades, piazzas, and campanilis—reflect four hundred years of Venetian rule.
Dalmatia is named after the Dalmatae, one of the Illyrian tribes that occupied the land in the first millennium B.C. The Illyrians were followed by the Celts, who swept down from the Danube and settled in the western part of the Balkan peninsula as far south as present-day Albania. These early communities were mainly cereal eaters. They grew barley and millet and several strains of wheat, and ate a variety of fresh fruit and vegetables including onions, garlic, cabbage, black radish, and lentils. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Dalmatia was ruled by the Byzantines, the Hrvati or Croats, and the Hungarians. In the fifteenth century, the Venetians ruled the whole of the Dalmatian coast except for the independent city-state of Ragusa (present-day Dubrovnik), while most of the Balkan lands on the other side of the Dinaric Alps were swallowed up by the Ottoman Empire. After Napoleon’s defeat in 1815, Dalmatia, like Istria, came under Austro-Hungarian rule until the end of World War I. In 1918, Dalmatia was incorporated into the newly founded Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, which later became known as Yugoslavia.
Dalmatian cooking is classic Mediterranean fare based on olive oil, garlic, and herbs, especially flat-leaf parsley. The Italian influence is very strong with a liking for pasta in all its forms, as well as njoki (gnocchi) and palenta (polenta). Riži-biži (rice and peas) is the Dalmatian version of this well-known Venetian dish. Bread is a staple and eaten at every meal. Bread is made with wheat flour, rye, cornmeal, or potatoes, and often flavored with rosemary, sage, or cinnamon.
The dry Mediterranean climate is very suitable for growing olives, eggplant, sweet peppers, and zucchini. The cooking is simple and rustic. Most vegetables, especially green beans, carrots, spinach, cauliflower, and potatoes are boiled and dressed with olive oil, salt, and black pepper. Blitva pirjana is a popular dish of Swiss chard and potatoes, dressed with olive oil, garlic, and parsley. Zucchini, peppers, and eggplants are often stuffed with a mixture of bread crumbs, olives, capers, garlic, and parsley. A wide variety of fruit is grown including figs, apricots, nectarines, peaches, plums, melons, and table grapes. Dalmatia is famous for its marasca cherries which are made into jams, syrups, and, of course, cherry brandy, which rivals sljivovica (plum brandy), the national drink.
Various cheeses are produced: Formaio de Novaia (a hard ewe’s milk cheese similar to pecorino), Formaio de Ludro (a pungent goat cheese that is sometimes served with olives as an appetizer), pujine (a fresh cheese similar to ricotta), and formaiele (a small goat cheese that resembles Italian Caprini).
Meals usually end with fresh fruit, cheese, or a light dessert such as rožada (caramelized baked custard that is usually flavored with marasca liqueur). Traditional cakes and pastries include savijaca od orhua (a kind of walnut strudel), pogače (a light yeasted cake scented with rosewater and lemon rind), and fritule dalmatinske (sweet fritters flavored with sljivovica that are made on Christmas Eve). Medenjaci (honey biscuits) and paprenjaci (pepper biscuits) are usually served with Prošek (a sweet wine similar to port that is made from grapes that are left to dry out on the vine to increase their sweetness).
Albania, or Shqiperia (Land of the Eagles) as it is called by the Albanians, lies along the western coast of the Balkan Peninsula between Montenegro and Greece. It is a land of great beauty with rugged mountains, thick forests, deep lakes, and a spectacular coastline—called the Riviera of the flowers—that stretches for nearly 80 miles along the Ionian littoral between Vlora and Saranda.
The Albanians are direct descendants of the Albanoi, an Illyrian tribe that inhabited the land in the first millennium B.C. The Albanian language, which is unlike any other, is the only surviving language to derive from ancient Illyrian. The Albanian people are very proud of their unique heritage and traditions, which they have managed to retain despite two thousand years of occupation by the Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Bulgarians, Normans, Serbs, Venetians, and Ottoman Turks.
Albanian cooking has been greatly influenced by five hundred years of Turkish rule. Mezet (appetizers) and vegetable dishes such as havjar me patëllxhan (eggplant caviar), dollma me fletë hardhi je ne oria (vine leaves stuffed with rice, pine nuts, and currants), qofte patatesh (potato croquettes), and byreçka (triangular filo pastries filled with white cheese, pumpkin, or leeks) have obvious Turkish origins. Albanians also have a liking for hot peppers, which were introduced by the Turks in the sixteenth century, probably via Egypt.
Bread, rice, and pasta (makaronash) are staples. Kabuni (rice with sultanas, butter, sugar, and cinnamon) is the national dish. Misërnike (cornbread) and cornmeal porridge (kaçamak or memelige) also play an important role in the Albanian diet. Along the coast, the Italian influence is still apparent. Memelige me djathë (a layered pie made with slices of polenta, cheese, and tomato sauce) is reminiscent of polenta pies made in northern Italy.
Excellent kos (yoghurt) is made usually from sheep’s milk, as well as several cheeses including karçkavall (a full-fat hard cheese made from cow’s milk), Djathe (a white cheese similar to feta), and gjize (a kind of cottage cheese).
The Albanians have also adopted the Turkish love of sweet pastries filled with nuts and coated in syrup such as bakllava and kadaif. Other Albanian desserts of note include petulla (yeasted fritters dusted with powdered sugar), zupa (a kind of trifle that derives from the Italian zuppa inglese), shandatlie (walnut biscuits coated in syrup), and pure me kungull në furrë (a light pumpkin pudding with ground walnuts, sultanas, and cinnamon). Albanians are also very fond of akullore (ice cream).
LANGUEDOC ROUSSILLON PROVENCE CORSICA
Here nature and man are in closer harmony than anywhere else in France. Buildings . . . have become part of the landscape, baked into it by the synthesizing heat of the Provençal sun . . . You cannot live there without becoming aware of the vigorous pulse of the south.
—Waverley Root, The Food of France
The South of France is one of the most beautiful regions of the Mediterranean. The breathtaking coastline of the Côte d’Azur, the fortified hilltop villages of Provence, the wild massifs of the Alpilles, and the mountains of the Luberon have inspired artists and writers for centuries. Languedoc-Roussillon is the lesser known western half of the south of France that lies between the Rhone and the Spanish border. Its southern lowlands are often referred to as the Midi—a region that has no specific boundaries—that can apply to anywhere between Perpignan and Marseilles.
The people of southern France are descendants of Ligurian and Iberian tribes that inhabited the land in the first millennium B.C. In the seventh century B.C., the Phocaean Greeks settled along its shores and introduced the olive and the vine. They also founded the cities of Agde, Nîmes, Anitibes, Nice, and Marsillia (Marseilles), the oldest city in France. When the Romans took over from the Greeks, they called the land Provincia Romana Narbonensis, with Narbo (Narbonne) as its capital. Roman rule lasted more than five hundred years. The Romans drained the marshes of the Rhone delta and improved agriculture in the hinterland. They also left an impressive legacy of their architecture including the Pont du Gard aqueduct and the amphitheatre in Nimes, which is better preserved than the Coliseum in Rome.
After the Fall of the Roman Empire, much of the land was overrun by Visigoths, Franks, and the Moors, or Saracens as they are usually called in France and Italy. The Saracens had little effect on the cooking of the Languedoc except for encouraging a wider use of spices and a liking for sweet, layered pastries. Between the tenth and thirteenth centuries, most of southern France was divided into fiefdoms ruled by counts, viscounts, and minor lords—the most powerful of which were the Counts of Toulouse, the Counts of Barcelona, and the Counts of Provence. This was the time of the Troubadours and the Cathars or Albigensians, a heretical sect that believed in reincarnation and who were strict vegetarians. The Counts of Toulouse were tolerant of the Cathars, but the King of France, King Phillipe Auguste, seized the opportunity to crush the Cathars in order to gain control of their land. At this time, France was not much bigger than the Languedon. Phillipe joined forces with Pope Innocent III and launched a crusade against the Cathars that lasted over thirty years. It ended with their savage slaughter and the Languedoc submitting to French rule. In the early fourteenth century, the Pope acquired the Comtat Venaissin and set up the seat of the papacy in Avignon, where it remained for almost a century. Aubergines des Papes, or papeton, a kind of soufflé or mousse made with sauteed eggplant that was originally made in the shape of a crown, was created by a papal chef of this period. The County of Provence remained independent for a further two hundred years of wars, famine, and pestilence before it was finally bequeathed to France in 1486.
Roussillon lies in the southeastern corner of the French Mediterranean coast next to Spain. Roussillon did not become part of France until 1559; it previously belonged to the Catalan Kingdom of Aragon. Even today Catalan is widely spoken. Both Catalan and Provencal are dialects of the language of oc (meaning “yes”) that was once spoken all over southern France, as opposed to the language of oil that was spoken in the north.
The County of Nice, which had been under Italian rule for five hundred years, was ceded to France in 1860, after Napoleon II helped Vittorio Emmanuele II create the future kingdom of Italy. The Italian influence is still very strong, especially on its cuisine. All kinds of pasta are made—les nouilla (noodles), lasagna, and cannelon, as well as gnocchi and polenta. Raviolis are often stuffed with Swiss chard and cheese.
Provençal cooking is Mediterranean cooking at its best. Although it evolved out of la cuisine des pauvres, it is based on the finest ingredients: superb olive oil, garlic, tomatoes, and the herbs of Provence: thyme, rosemary, sage, savory, fennel, parsley, marjoram, oregano, and basil. Meals usually begin with fresh fruit such as figs or the famous melon of Cavaillon, steamed artichokes served with aïoli, the garlicky mayonnaise that is often called the “butter of Provence,” or perhaps a light salad of tomatoes or roast peppers, bathed in olive oil and garnished with capers or small black olives from Nice.
One of Provence’s most famous soups is la soupe au pistou (a thick vegetable soup similar to the Italian minestrone that is flavored with a garlic and basil sauce reminiscent of the Ligurian pesto). Another soup much loved by the Provençals is aigo-boulido (garlic soup flavored with sage).
Vegetables are held in high esteem. Les farcis—a colorful array of stuffed vegetables (eggplants, zucchini, pepper, tomatoes, and onions) are served throughout the summer months. The same vegetables appear in the well-known Provençal stew—ratatouille. All kinds of vegetable tians (gratins) are made with spinach, artichokes, pumpkin, eggplant, zucchini, and rice.
Provence produces superb fruit: especially figs, watermelons, apricots, cherries, strawberries, table grapes, pears from the Bouche-du-Rhône, and peaches from the Var, so it is not surprising that fresh fruit is usually served for dessert. A variety of pastries, cakes, and fritters are made: les bugnes arésiennes (sweet fritters flavored with rum), la tourte de blettes (a sweet tart made with Swiss chard, pine nuts, and currants), les pignoulats (pine nut biscuits), and la pompe à l’huile (a yeast cake flavored with saffron and orange flower water that is served at the end of the Gros Souper on Christmas Eve).
A few cheeses are produced: les banons (small cheeses made from cow’s or goat’s milk that are sometimes wrapped in chestnut leaves), les brousses (fresh cheese made from ewe’s milk that may be sweetened or salted), le broussin (a fromage fort that is so pungent that the locals claim that it will make a man of you), and les picodons (small goat cheeses that are marinated in vinegar before they are wrapped in walnut leaves and stored in earthenware pots).
The cuisine of the Haut Languedoc (Upper Languedoc) is not Mediterranean cooking, although the Arabs did introduce white beans called nounjetas or favots. However, the cooking of Bas Languedoc (Lower Languedoc) is classic Mediterranean fare based on olive oil, garlic, onions, and tomatoes. Fine vegetables are grown, especially eggplant, which are prepared in numerous ways. All kinds of mushrooms are gathered in the hills: cèpes, morilles, oronges, lactaires, trompettes de la mort, and bolets. Truffles are found in the garrigues (the aromatic shrub that covers much of the hillsides in the Cevennes). Chestnuts are collected from the hills and made into creamy soups, stews, and stuffings.
Desserts include various fruit tarts—apple, pear, cherry, grape, and myrtille (bilberry), and a variety of sweet dishes made with honey or nuts such as la crème d’Homère (a kind of caramelized custard made with eggs, honey, and white wine), omelette aux pignons sucrées (a sweet pine nut omelet), and les Jesuites (puff pastries filled with an almond cream). Oreillettes (deep-fried pastries flavored with rum) are made in Montélimar for Carnéval (Shrove Tuesday).
The cooking of the Roussillon is French Catalan cooking with a liking for tomatoes, sweet and hot peppers, saffron, and bitter oranges. All-i-oli (a garlicky mayonnaise) is similar to the aïoli of Provence. Meals often start with el pa y al (slices of bread rubbed with garlic and liberally sprinkled with olive oil). Catalans are fond of egg dishes, especially flat omelets made with eggplant, mushrooms, tomatoes, and asparagus. Oeufs à la catalane are fried eggs served on a bed of sautéed tomatoes and eggplant strongly flavored with garlic and parsley. Eggplant, zucchini, and peppers are stuffed in numerous ways or made into delicious gratins. Poivrons farcis à la catalane are sweet peppers stuffed with rice, green olives, capers, currants, pine nuts, saffron, and herbs.
Rousillon has the sunniest climate in France with a growing season that is virtually all year round. In spring, it provides the rest of the country with early beans, parsley, and new potatoes, tomatoes, and cucumber in summer, and lettuce, escarole, and mâché (lamb’s lettuce) in winter. Excellent fruit is produced, especially plums, cherries, apricots, peaches, and melons, as well as such exotic fruit as jujubes and medlars. Corbières is famous for its fine almonds.
Desserts and pastries, too, are more Catalan than French. Bunyetes (deep-fried pastries) and rousquilles (almond biscuits) are reminiscent of the bunyols and rosquillas that are found across the border in Spain. Le soufflé Roussillonais is a peach souffle flavored with eau-de-vie. Black nougat is a specialty of Perpignan. The only cheese made in the Roussillon is lait caille (fresh curds) and fromage frais.
Corsica is the most mountainous island in the Mediterranean. The rugged gorges, deep ravines, dense forests of pine and chestnut trees and fantastic beaches have earned it the name of L’Île de Beauté. Much of the island is covered with macchia (shrubland that is fragrant with myrtle, broom, lavender, sorrel, borage, pennyroyal, sage, thyme, marjoram, and many other aromatic plants that are only found in Corsica).
Like Sardinia, Sicily, Malta, and the Balearic Islands, Corsica has been inhabited since the Stone Age. The first wave of settlers was the Ligurians in the seventh millennium B.C. They were followed by the Torreans, Greeks, Etruscans, Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals, Saracens, Pisans, Genoese, and the French. Even the British ruled Corsica for two brief years at the end of the eighteenth century. All these invasions and occupations have given Corsicans a strong sense of identity and family honor. There is a Corsican saying: “So corsu, ne se fienu,” which means “I’m Corsican, and I’m proud of it.”
Corsican food is simple country fare. Soups are substantial. La suppa corsa (a vegetable soup that is similar to the Italian minestra and usually includes onions, tomatoes, potatoes, broad beans, and cabbage). Minestra incu i ceci di Jovi Santu (a chickpea and pasta soup) is usually served on Good Friday. Chestnut flour is widely used in cooking. Chestnuts were first introduced by the Genoese in the fourteenth century. When the Genoese began to levy high taxes on wheat, the rebellious Corsicans refused to grow it and used chestnut flour instead. Today, chestnut flour is used to make brilluli (a kind of porridge), nicci (pancakes), and pisticchine (a chestnut galette). It also appears in various desserts such as flan à la farine de chataigne (a kind of cream caramel thickened with chestnut flour) and la torta castagnina (a rustic walnut cake).
Several cheeses are made in Corsica: Bleu de Corse (ewe’s milk cheese that resembles Roquefort, various goat cheeses, and brocciu (a fresh goat cheese made with ewe’s milk that is similar to Italian ricotta and les brousses of Provence). Brocciu is also made demi-sec and sec. Fresh brocciu appears in many Corsican dishes: as stuffings for omelets, ravioli, and cannelloni, and in sweet and savory fritters. It is also used in numerous desserts such as fiadone (a cheesecake flavored with lemon rind and eau-de-vie), l’imbrucciati (cheese-filled puff pastries), and strenna (a brocciu cheese tart that is made in Vico on New Year’s Day). Brocciu sec or dried brocciu is used, like Italian Parmesan, for flavoring soups and pasta. Other pastries of note are i canestri (ring-shaped pastries that are traditionally made for Easter), merzapani (almond macaroons), and fugazzi (a sweet bread flavored with pastis and white wine that is made in Bonifacio on Good Friday.)
Light acquires a transcendental quality, it is not the light of the Mediterranean alone, it is something more, something unfathomable, something holy. Here the light penetrates directly to the soul. Opens the doors and windows of the heart, makes one naked, exposed, isolated in a metaphysical bliss which makes everything clear without being known.
—Henry Miller, The Colossus of Maroussi
You should see the landscape of Greece.
It would break your heart.
—Lawrence Durrell, Spirit of Place: Letters and Essays in Travel
Greece is a land where East meets West, where the past is seamlessly interwoven with the present, where myth and legend are fused with history. It is a land of extraordinary beauty, with dazzling light, dusty red earth, clear blue sea, whitewashed villages, wooded hills, and rugged mountains. Greece has over 1,400 islands, but only 169 are inhabited.
The state of Greece, as we know it today, is not very old. Half of Epirus, Macedonia, Thrace, Crete, and most of the Aegean Islands were only united with Greece after the Balkan Wars in 1913. Before then, Greece was ruled by the Ottoman Turks, Franks, Venetians, Catalans, Genoese, Byzantines, and the Romans.
Greece as a country has not existed for two thousand years, yet the spirit of Greece (its language and its strong sense of identity) have survived throughout its long history of invasions and occupations. Around 7000 B.C. early farming communities developed in Macedonia and the fertile plain of Thessaly, where they grew barley and wheat, and kept sheep and goats. In the Bronze Age (c. 3000-1400 B.C.), the Minoan civilization in Crete was the most advanced in Europe. The Minoans were a great maritime power, trading olive oil, wine, and honey around the Mediterranean. On the mainland, the Mycenaean civilization thrived until 1100 B.C. when the Dorians swept down from the north and plunged Greece into a Dark Age that lasted more than three centuries. Over the following three hundred years, city-states or polis evolved—the most powerful of which was Athens. This was the beginning of Greece’s Golden Age, when she produced more men of genius—in philosophy, politics, geometry, and the arts—than any other time in history.
The diet of classical Greece was based on cereals, olive oil, legumes, and wine. The main staple was maza—a grain-paste or cake similar to the Roman puls but made with whole-grain barley flour. Wheat flour was used to make bread. (According to Athenaeus, more than seventy-two varieties of leavened and unleavened bread were made.) Legumes and seeds were highly prized for their nutritional value. Chickpeas, lentils, fava beans, and vetch were boiled and made into etnos (a kind of porridge). Ancient Greeks were fond of onions and garlic and ate a variety of dark-green leafy vegetables such as lettuce, watercress, purslane, orache, and turnip tops. They also ate plenty of cheese, almonds, and walnuts and a variety of fresh and dried fruit, especially figs, grapes, apples, pears, melons, quinces, and pomegranates. Meals were washed down with wine—often thinned with water—or kykeon (barley water flavored with mint). The poorest peasants drank diluted vinegar instead of wine.
Meat and fish were luxuries in ancient Greece. Meat was mainly associated with sacrificial practices as an offering to the Gods and only small quantities were eaten after the ceremonial rites had taken place. Garos (the fermented fish sauce called garum by the Romans) was originally made in Corinth.
Greece was under Byzantine rule for over a thousand years, from classical times to the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. The Byzantines encouraged a wider use of vegetables and spices and a liking for sweet pastries. This was mainly a result of Christianity and the Greek Orthodox Church being adopted as the official religion, which increased the number of holy days in the calendar year when the eating of meat was prohibited—Pentecost, the forty days of abstinence for Lent, and the forty days following November 15 for Christmas. Meat was also never eaten on Wednesdays and Fridays. This is why there are so many traditional pies and stuffed vegetables in Greece that are made without meat. Special pastries were made to celebrate each holy day (as they were in most Mediterranean countries) such as tahinopita (a sweet tahini cake) for Lent, tsourekia (braided buns flavored with aniseed) for Easter, Christopsomo (Christmas bread decorated with walnuts and sesame seeds), and vasilopita (a sweet yeasted bread that is made on New Year’s Day). Vasilopita is named after St. Basil of Caesarea—one of the three Hierarchs of the Greek Orthodox Church.
The Ottoman Turks, who ruled Greece for nearly four hundred years, were another important influence on Greek cooking. Many dishes in Greece today have names that derive from Turkish: domates (stuffed vine leaves) from the Turkish dolma, bourekia (fried filo pastries usually filled with cheese or vegetables) from börek, pilafi from pilav, and so on. The Greeks claim that many Turkish dishes have Greek origins. For example, it is often said that yiahni, the Turkish word for food sautéed with onions, may derive from the Greek word ahnizo, meaning to sauté. Moussaka, one of Greece’s most famous dishes, is often thought to be a creation of Ottoman cooks who were sent to France and Italy to study cooking, and returned with béchamel sauce, which they added to a Byzantine dish of eggplant and lamb. Today there are many vegetarian versions of moussaka.
Modern Greek cooking has much in common with Italian and Turkish cuisines. The Greeks claim their culinary traditions go back to the days of Ancient Greece, and that both the Italians and the Turks have been influenced by the Greek cuisine. It is certainly true that Greek chefs were much sought after in the ancient world. The Romans often employed chefs from the Greek cities of Sicily and Southern Italy (then part of Magna Graecia) to prepare their banquets. It is also true that in the Renaissance the Italians were greatly influenced by the art and culture of Ancient Greece. Also, many of the Greek Islands—the Cyclades, the Sporades, Euboea, Crete, Rhodes, the Ionian, and the Aegean Islands—had, at one time or another, been ruled by the Venetians. Some dishes on the islands, such as pastitsio (a baked macaroni pie), still have Italian names.
The Greeks are avid cheese eaters. Most Greek villages produce their own cheese for local consumption. The most well-known Greek cheeses are: feta (a semi-soft, crumbly cheese made from goat or ewe’s milk), Kasseri (a mild creamy-colored cheese that is usually eaten on its own or with bread), and Kefalotyri (a hard sheep’s milk cheese that is mainly used in cooking or for grating over pasta). Mizithra is a soft, unsalted cheese that is often served sweetened with honey or sugar. It is also used in various sweet or savory pastries.
The charm was, as always in Italy, in the tone and the air and the happy hazard of things, which made any positive pretension or claimed importance a comparative trifling experience.
—Henry James, Italian Hours
Italy is a country of superlatives. It has some of the most beautiful cities, towns, and villages in the world, some of the most spectacular coastlines in the Mediterranean, and more fine art and architecture than anywhere else in Europe. It has also produced some of the world’s most famous artists, poets, and musicians: Dante Alighieri, Petrarch, Giotto, Piero della Francesca, Donatello, da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Bellini, Vivaldi, and Verdi, to name a few.
One of the charms of Italy is its diversity. Each of its nineteen regions has its own atmosphere, dialect, culture, and cuisine. In fact almost every town has its own style of cooking: alla napoletana, alla milanese, alla genovese, alla fiorentina, etc. This is not surprising because Italy has only been united as one country since 1861—before then it was broken up into a patchwork of kingdoms, republics, duchies, and papal and city-states.
Italy has a long and complex history. In the second millennium B.C., most of northern Italy was inhabited by the Ligurians, while the rest of the country was occupied by various migratory Italic tribes: Sabines, Aequi, Piceri, Ombri, Latins, and Messapians. By 800 B.C., much of the south was colonized by the Greeks, who called the land Magna Graecia (Greater Greece), while the Etruscans ruled the land between the Tiber and the Po. Legend has it that Romulus founded Rome in 752 B.C. By 175 B.C., the Roman Republic had overrun the Etruscans and the Greeks and spread across the entire Italian peninsula. After the Punic Wars, the Romans seized the Carthaginian territories of Sardinia, Corsica, and Spain, and by A.D. 106, the Roman Empire had taken control of the whole of the Mediterranean and most of Europe south of the Rhine.
Roman cooking was greatly inspired by the cooking of Ancient Greece, Asia Minor, and Etruria. A staple of the Roman diet was puls or pulmentum—a kind of porridge usually made with barley, millet, or spelt—that the Romans adopted from the Etruscans. Pulmentum was the forerunner of polenta—now made with cornmeal—that is still eaten in much of northern Italy today. As the poor of Rome had little cooking equipment and often suffered fuel shortages, they ate a good quantity of uncooked food such as olives, raw beans, figs, and a kind of cottage cheese made with ewe’s milk, with pulmentum or, as milling processes improved, with coarse bread. They also ate a variety of herbs and greens, especially nettles, chard, and mallow.
The food of the rich was, of course, another matter. Roman banquets were renowned for their lavishness. Foodstuffs were imported from all over the Empire: pomegranates from Persia, apricots from Armenia, and pickles from Spain. Other sought-after delicacies included elephant trunks, flamingo’s tongues, peacock’s brains, camel’s feet, well-fattened hedgehogs, dormice, and snails. The Romans were also keen agriculturists and produced a wide variety of vegetables (turnips, carrots, leeks, sorrel, broccoli, onions, cucumbers, radishes, cress, leeks, endive, numerous varieties of peas, horseradish, rocket, the finest asparagus in the ancient world, and cabbage), which they regarded as a panacea.
The Romans liked to disguise the taste of their food with strongly flavored sauces such as liquamen, or garum as it was sometimes called. The exact ingredients are disputed but it was very salty and usually contained the entrails of red nmllet, horse mackerel, or anchovies. They were also very fond of spices, and sweet and sour sauces made with pine nuts, sultanas, grapes, mint, vinegar, wine, and musk—which roughly resemble the agro dolce sauces that are still in use in Italy today. Cheesecake was invented by the Romans, as well as the omelet—which derives from ova mellita (honeyed eggs).
The collapse of the Roman Empire was followed by wave after wave of invasions, by Visigoths, Vandals, Ostrogoths, Lombards, and the Franks. In the ninth century, Sicily was overrun by the Saracens. The Saracens introduced new irrigation systems and set up the first rice plantation in Europe near Lentini in southwest Sicily. They also brought the eggplant, spinach, buckwheat (still called saraceno in Italian), dates, pistachios, sugar cane, oranges, and the lemon, which quickly replaced verjus (the juice of unripe grapes) in sauces and dressings. The Saracens also taught the Sicilians the art of making ice cream and sherbets, and introduced various sweet pastries and cakes including cassata (the well-known Sicilian sponge cake filled with sweetened ricotta and candied fruit). The name cassata derives from the Arabic qas’ah, the deep-sided dish in which it was originally baked.
When the Crusaders set off in the Middle Ages to rescue the Holy Land from the grip of Islam, they were often transported in Venetian ships. Venetian merchants returned with cargoes of silks, dyes, perfumes, and spices from the East: cinnamon, cloves, saffron, ginger, cardamom, and especially pepper, which was so highly prized it was worth its weight in gold. Fortunes were made. Genoa and Pisa also prospered on the Spice Trade, but the power and wealth of Venice were unrivalled. By the middle of the fifteenth century, the Republic of Venice had taken control of Istria and most of the Dalmatian coast, as well as a string of Greek islands including Corfu and Crete. After the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, the Spice Trade was threatened and Venice was forced to trade with Muslims in the Near East. Prices soared, which was the main incentive for the Portuguese to find new trade routes to the East by circumventing Africa.
At the same time the Renaissance—the rebirth of the art and ideas of Ancient Greece—brought a renewed interest in the culinary arts. The first printed cookbook, De Honestate Voluptate ac Valetudine (Concerning Honest Pleasure and Well-Being) written by Bartolomeo Scappi (also known as Platina), was published in Cremona around 1475. In it, Platina recommended starting meals with fresh fruit. He also preferred to season food with lemon or orange juice, or wine, rather than the Roman excessive use of spices. Many of his recipes are very simple and healthy, such as broad bean or squash soup poured over slices of bread.
At the height of the Renaissance, Florence had the most sophisticated cuisine in Europe. In 1533, when Catherine de Medici married the Dauphin who became Henry II of France, she took her Florentine cooks to the French court. They taught the French the art of making fine pastries and cakes such as frangipane, macaroons, and cream puffs. They also introduced the French to a variety of vegetables including artichokes, broccoli, Savoy cabbages, and tiny peas, which the French quickly adopted as their own.
Gradually new foodstuffs appeared from the New World. The first sack of corn was brought to Venice in the sixteenth century via Turkey. The Venetians, thinking the new grain was Turkish, called it granturco, which corn is still called in Italy today. Haricot beans soon took preference over broad beans, especially in Tuscany where they became so popular that Tuscans became known as mangiafagioli (bean eaters). Both the potato and the tomato were initially thought to be poisonous and were not widely used in cooking until the eighteenth century.
Italian cooking today is regional cooking. Each of Italy’s nineteen regions has its own style of cooking. The elegant cuisines of Emilia and the Veneto are very different from the rustic cooking of Apulia and Sardinia. Foreign influences, too, are still apparent—French in Lombardy, Piedmont and the Val D’Aosta, Austrian in Trentino and the Alto Adige, Central European in Venezia Giulia, Spanish in Naples and the south, and Arab in Sicily.
There is also a dichotomy between the cooking of the north and that of the south. In the north, there is a liking for soft, flat ribbons of pasta rich in eggs, while hard, tubular, factory-made pasta predominates in the south. Traditionally, olive oil was the main cooking medium of southern Italy, while pork fat was used in the center, and butter in the north, where the land was more suited to cattle rearing than the growing of olives. Today less pork fat is eaten and the use of olive oil has become more widespread. Tomato sauces strongly flavored with garlic, basil, oregano, chili, olives, and capers, which are fundamental to the cooking of the south, are seldom used in the north. In some regions of northern Italy, especially Lombardy and the Veneto, rice and polenta are eaten more than pasta.
Vegetables, too, play an important role in the cooking of every region of Italy. Vegetables are stuffed, made into fritters, all kinds of frittate (omelets), delicious gratins, and pies. Each region has its own repertoire of vegetable specialties such as la torta pasqualina of Liguria (an elaborate pie filled with beet greens), Prescinsens (the local soft white cheese, cream, and whole eggs), tortino di carciofi (a kind of baked omelet from Tuscany), and timballo di melanzane (a layered pie made with fried eggplant, Scamorza cheese, beaten egg, and grated pecorino from Abruzzo). Italy produces some of the finest cheeses in the world: Gorgonzola, Bel Paese, and Dolcelatte from Lombardy, Fontina and Robiole from Piedmont, pecorino from Sardinia, Rome, and the south, and provolone from Campania and Apulia. The king of Italian cheeses is, of course, Parmegiano Reggiano, which is made in specified areas of Parma, Reggio Nell’Emilia, Modena, Bologna, and Mantova.
Many Italian desserts are world famous: zabaione (a frothy mixture of eggs, sugar, and Marsala) from Piedmont, panforte (a rich flat cake made with chopped nuts, honey, sugar, dried and candied fruit, cocoa, and spices), and tiramisu (a chilled pudding usually made with layers of sponge cake soaked in coffee and liqueur, a mascarpone and egg cream and grated chocolate, which is a fairly recent invention from Treviso). There are so many regional cakes and pastries in Italy that it would be impossible to mention them all. Some of the most notable include: castagnaccio (a flat cake from Tuscany made with chestnut flour, sultanas, walnuts, pine nuts, and fennel seeds), pastiero (a Neapolitan pastry filled with a mixture of ricotta, candied fruit, eggs, spices, and grains of wheat that have been softened in milk), and gubana (a rich pastry roll from Friuli that is filled with a mixture of chopped nuts, sultanas soaked in rum, dried figs, prunes, candied orange rind, and chocolate).
SYRIA LEBANON ISRAEL EGYPT
Concerning the spices of Arabia let no more be said. The whole country is scented with them, and exhales an odor marvelously sweet.”
—Herodotus, The Histories
It is said that there is a language of flowers.
In the Middle East there is a language of food.
—Claudia Roden, A Book of Middle Eastern Food
The Middle East has been called the Cradle of Civilization. The fertile Crescent of Mesopotamia and the Valley of the Nile are thought to be the sites of the world’s first cultures. Jericho, which was built around 7000 B.C. is one of the oldest cities in the world. The Middle East lies on the crossroads of three continents—Europe, Asia, and Africa. It is also the birthplace of three religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
The cooking of Islam extends beyond present-day boundaries. It has a shared heritage that, at its height, was the most influential in the Mediterranean world. Little is known of the diet of its ancient inhabitants (Assyrians, Babylonians, Aramaeans, Phoenicians, etc.), although there is no doubt that these prosperous kingdoms had highly developed cultures and culinary traditions. From the Bible, we know that the Israelites ate a variety of beans, chickpeas, lentils, dates, figs, raisins, grapes, nuts, olives, capers, wild leaves, and bitter herbs—which are still eaten for Passover today.
In 539 B.C. the Persians conquered much of the region, followed by the Macedonian Greeks, Romans, and the Byzantines. After the death of Mohammed in 632 A.D. the newly converted Arab Muslims defeated the Persians and the Byzantines and took control of Antioch, Damascus, Jerusalem, and Alexandria. The Arabs, who were used to a frugal diet based on cereals, dates, milk, and small amounts of mutton, quickly assimilated the Persian love of good eating. From the Persians, they learned the subtle use of spices, to add dried fruit and nuts to savory dishes, and new, more sophisticated methods of preserving foods with salt and vinegar, or lemon juice and honey, as well as the crystallization of fruit. The seat of the Caliphate was set up first in Damascus and then in Baghdad. Food-stuffs from all over the Middle East, as well as exotic spices from India and China, found their way into the markets of Baghdad and the tables of the Abbasid Caliphs. Over the following one hundred years, the Arabs swept across the whole of North Africa into Spain, Sicily, and Southwest France, introducing new foods and cooking techniques to more than half of the Mediterranean world.
The next great culinary influence in the Middle East was the Ottoman Empire. Although both Ottoman and Arab cuisines had much in common, there were some differences. The Ottomans had adopted many recipes from the Balkan lands under their control, such as stuffed vegetables and vegetable moussakas. The Ottomans also introduced the Arabs to yoghurt, burghul, and börek (savory pastries), as well as sweet pastries such as ba’lawah (baklava) and k’nafeh (shredded wheat pastry).
After World War I, the Ottoman Empire was broken up and Syria and Lebanon became independent states under French mandate until the end of World War II when they, as well as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, finally regained their independence.
Syria and Lebanon lie along the east coast of the Mediterranean between Turkey and Israel. They were once part of one country called Bilad al-Sham (the Land of Greater Syria) and have shared a long history of invasions and occupations by Hittites, Canaanites (who later became known as the Phoenicians), Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, and Ottoman Turks.
The cuisines of both countries are virtually identical, although the names of some dishes are different. However, Lebanese cooking is more diverse, with a wider selection of vegetarian recipes. Before the Civil War, Beirut claimed to have the best restaurants in the Middle East.
The variety of Lebanese mezze and salads is enormous. In recent years, many have become world famous such as hommus bil-tahineh (a chickpea and sesame-seed paste flavored with garlic and lemon juice), baba ghanouge (an eggplant and tahini dip), tabbouleh (a tomato, parsley, and burghul salad), and falafel (a dried broad bean and chickpea rissole). Mezze are always served with khoubiz (Arabic flat bread). There is a liking for mahashi (stuffed vegetables), especially eggplant, zucchini, peppers, Swiss chard, and vine leaves stuffed with a mixture of rice, tomatoes, herbs, cinnamon, and summa (sumac), which adds a distinctive, tangy, lemony flavor. Various savory pastries are made including sambousak and fatayer which are usually filled with spinach, curd cheese, or potatoes.
Kibbeh is the national dish. Kibbeh el-heeleh (vegetarian kibbeh) is made with a mixture of mashed potatoes or pumpkin, burghul, nuts, onion, and spices. Kibbeh can be baked, fried, or simmered in a yoghurt, tahini, or kishk sauce. Kishk is a kind of flour made with fermented and dried yoghurt and burghul.
Various cheeses are made from goat’s or ewe’s milk: Jibneh khadreah (a fresh goat cheese made in the Lebanese mountains), Jibneh trabolsyeh (a crumbly white cheese similar to feta), Areesh (a curd cheese made with yoghurt and lemon juice), and Halloum (a slightly chewy, hard cheese that is sometimes flavored with black cumin seeds).
Meals usually end with fresh fruit, which Lebanon produces in abundance: red and white cherries, prickly pears, pomegranates, medlars, custard apples, jujubes, and mulberries, as well as all kinds of citrus fruit, melons, apricots, peaches, plums, grapes, and figs.
Pastries are usually eaten between meals with a cup of Turkish coffee. Ba’lawah (baklava) are made in many shapes and sizes and filled with chopped almonds, walnuts, pine nuts, cashews, or pistachios. K’nafeh (shredded-wheat pastries) are filled with chopped nuts or fresh cheese. Both ba’lawah and k’nafeh are coated in ater (a sugar syrup flavored with rose water and orange-flower water). Other traditional desserts include tamriyeh (little envelopes of paper-thin pastry with a sweet semolina filling scented with rose water) and kellage (sweet fritters filled with ashtah (clotted cream) that are made during Ramadan). Kellage is the name of the wafer-thin sheets of pastry used. Ma-maul bil-joz (walnut pastries), rass bil-tamer (date pastries), and ka’k el seed (ring-shaped biscuits) are all Easter specialties.
Israel has been called a country in search of a cuisine. The state of Israel was created a little over fifty years ago and is inhabited by immigrants from more than seventy countries. The Jews basically divide into two cultures: Ashkenazi (Jews from Northern and Eastern Europe and Russia), and Sephardic Jews (from Spain, North Africa, the Middle East, and as far away as Yemen, Ethiopia, and India).
Both cultures have brought their own culinary heritage. Since Jewish dietary laws forbid the mixing of meat and milk at one meal, there are a wide variety of dairy and vegetarian dishes. The Ashkenazi world brought Russian borsht (beetroot soup), piroshki (yeasted pastries filled with curd cheese, cabbage, potato, sauerkraut, or mushrooms), cheese blintzes (pancakes), kreplach (a kind of ravioli), and potato kugel (a potato pudding). They also introduced challah (egg bread) and bagels, lekach (honey cake), babka (a yeasted butter cake), and plava (sponge cake), as well as various cheesecakes and strudels.
Sephardic specialties include Moroccan couscous, Tunisian breiks (filo pastry cigars) with an egg or potato filling, Lebanese sambousak (spinach turnovers), Syrian kibbeh, and various sweet pastries and cakes that are usually filled with nuts or dried fruit and coated in sugar syrup.
Israel has also adopted many indigenous dishes as its own. The most famous is falafel (a chickpea rissole), which is sold by street vendors all over Israel. Falafel are stuffed inside pita bread with a variety of fresh and pickled salads and topped with tahini, as well as a hot chili sauce. Other Arab dishes include the ubiquitous hummus bil-tahinah (a chickpea and sesame seed paste), dolmas (stuffed vine leaves), and ka’ak (Arab flat bread topped with za’atar (a mixture of wild marjoram, thyme, oregano, and olive oil).
Israel grows an abundance of fresh fruit and vegetables. Dates, figs, pomegranates, and apples have been grown since biblical times. Israeli avocado, pears, and Jaffa oranges are world famous.
A few cheeses are made, mainly from goat’s or ewe’s milk. Kachkaval, a hard yellow cheese also known as Kasseri, is made in a few villages in the Golan Heights. Labaneh, a fresh white cheese made from drained yoghurt, is sometimes rolled into balls and stored in olive oil with rosemary and dried chilies.
The Egyptian civilization, which dates back more than six thousand years, is one of the oldest known to man. The Egyptians were the first people to bake bread and were eating a well-balanced diet when most of mankind was still hunting for food. Herodotus called Egypt “the gift of the Nile”—without the Nile, Egypt would just be another part of the Sahara Desert. The rich, fertile Nile Valley produces fruit, vegetables, and grains, especially wheat, barley, corn, rice, sugar cane, oranges, lemons, watermelons, and dates, all year round.
For centuries, the peasants, or fellahin, have lived on a diet based on vegetables, grains, legumes, fruits, sweet pastries filled with nuts, and coffee. Egyptians do not like their food hot and spicy, although ta’liya (a mixture of crushed garlic and coriander) is widely used to flavor most vegetable stews.
Ful medames (small brown broad beans flavored with garlic and cumin) is the national dish. The beans are dressed with olive oil and lemon juice and served with aiysh baladi (whole-wheat Arab bread) and various pickled salads. Falafel (broad-bean rissoles) have been made in Egypt since the days of the pharaohs. Another popular dish is bissara, a thick broad-bean soup flavored with onion, garlic, cumin, mint, and melokhia (a green leafy vegetable that can be eaten fresh or dried). Dried melokhia leaves are often added to soups to give them a thicker, more glutinous consistency. Egyptians also love egg dishes, especially eggah, a thick omelet similar to the Italian frittata that is served cut in wedges like a pie.
Desserts and pastries include the ubiquitous ba’lawa and k’nafeh, zalabia (little pastry fritters soaked in sugar syrup that are similar to the Greek loukoumades), and balouza (a kind of jelly flavored with rose water and topped with chopped almonds or pistachios). Balouza should not be confused with basbouza, a semolina and almond cake coated in lemon-flavored sugar syrup. Another refreshing dessert is koshaf (a dried fruit salad with almonds and pine nuts).
LIBYA TUNISIA ALGERIA MOROCCO
“Insects, leaves, flowers, petals, seeds, roots, and galls. China, India, Java, Egypt, black Africa, the gardens and valleys of Morocco, blending perfume foreign to our European senses. Spices virulent with all the wildness of the countries where they have ripened, sweet from loving cultures of the gardens where they have flowered. Here is all the fascination of your dark kitchens, the odor of your streets. Spices are the soul of Fez.”
—Madame Guinaudeau, Traditional Moroccan Cooking
North African cooking, perhaps more than any other in the Mediterranean, has been molded by a long history of invasions and occupations. The indigenous people of the Magreb (the coastal strip along the southern shores of the Mediterranean that make up the modern states of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya) were the Berbers, a light-haired, fair-skinned people, who are thought to originate in Asia Minor. The Berber diet was based on wheat, lentils, broad beans, goat’s milk, and honey. Kesksou (couscous), the most famous dish of North Africa, was invented by the Berbers.
In the first millennium B.C., the Phoenicians set up trading posts along the coast of North Africa and founded Carthage near modern-day Tunis. Although the Carthaginians planted wheat, olives, and vines in the fifth century B.C., it was the Romans who developed agriculture on a grand scale, building aqueducts and canals as far away as Numidia in eastern Algeria. They built such vast estates of wheat fields that Carthage became known as the granary of Rome.
In the sixth century A.D., the Romans were overthrown by the Vandals, followed by the Byzantines. After the death of Mohammed in A.D. 631, the Arab Muslims overran North Africa and converted the people to Islam. The Arabs were great agriculturists and re-established Roman irrigation systems that had been destroyed by the vandals. They built new underground canals in Tunisia and Morocco using techniques they learned from the Persians.
New vegetables were introduced as well as all kinds of citrus fruit, rice, and sugar. In the eighth century, the Arabs swept across the Straights of Gibraltar and invaded Spain, where they remained until they were expelled by the Spanish Inquisition in 1492. Spanish Moors and Jews fled Al-Andalus (the old word for Moorish Spain) and sought refuge in the Magreb, bringing with them a rich culinary heritage after seven hundred years in Spain. They encouraged the use of olives and olive oil in cooking instead of the Berber smen (a kind of clarified butter). They brought new vegetables and fruits: eggplants, carrots, turnips, quinces, apricots, peaches, and cherries, as well as new vegetables from the New World—tomatoes, potatoes, and chili peppers. Exotic spices (cumin, cinnamon, saffron, turmeric, and cloves) were introduced and warka (a paper-thin pastry similar to filo pastry).
In the sixteenth century, much of the Magreb, (except Morocco) came under Ottoman rule. The Ottoman culinary influence is still apparent today. Tunisian brik and Algerian bourek both derive from the Turkish börek. Sweet pastries such as baklava and ktaif have obvious Turkish origins.
In the nineteenth century, Algeria, followed by Tunisia, became a French protectorate. (The French did not gain control of Morocco until 1912, at the same time that the Italians snatched Libya from the Ottomans.) The French were nicknamed “Pied-Noirs” (Black Feet) on account of their heavy black boots. Later “Pied-Noirs” came to refer to anyone of Italian, Spanish, or Portuguese origin—many of whom were Sephardic Jews—who lived in the Magreb. When Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia became independent, many “Pied-Noirs” returned to live in France, bringing their adopted North African cooking with them, which had some influence in introducing the French to new exotic flavors and new ways of cooking.
Moroccan cooking has been called one of the world’s greatest cuisines. Spices play an important part of most savory dishes. Saffron, ginger, cinnamon, turmeric, and sweet and hot peppers are used to flavor most savory dishes. Meals usually begin with a colorful array of raw, cooked, or puréed salads that rival the mezze of the Middle East. Simple salads of grilled or fried vegetables dressed with olive oil, garlic, preserved lemons, fresh coriander, and parsley; are little dishes of finely grated radishes; or carrots and apples scented with orange-flower water; or bowls of lentils or chickpeas dressed with olive oil, lemon juice, grated ginger, cumin, and garlic round out each meal.
The Fast of Ramadan is usually broken with a nourishing chickpea or lentil soup called harira. Harira has many variations. Harira kerouiya (a kind of gruel flavored with mint, lemon juice, mastic, and caraway seeds) is highly prized for its digestive qualities. Another nourishing soup is bessara, a broad-bean soup that is often served in winter as a meal on its own with some khobz (Moroccan bread) on the side.
Kesksou (couscous) is the national dish. The word couscous not only refers to the fine grains of semolina with which it is made, but also to the finished dish. The Berbers originally ate couscous with smen (a pungent aged butter flavored with herbs) and a bowl of milk. Today, couscous is served in a variety of ways. In fact, there are probably as many couscous dishes as there are cooks.
All kinds of vegetables (peppers, eggplant, zucchini, artichokes, okra, peas, potatoes, dried beans, or chickpeas) are made into maraks or tajines (stews) with onions, garlic, fruits, olives, or nuts, and flavored with fresh coriander and flat-leaf parsley and an exotic mix of spices. Tajines are named after the round earthenware pot with a conical lid in which they are cooked, but take note—most Moroccan tajines include some meat, fish, or poultry. Another Moroccan specialty is briouats, deep-fried triangular or cigar-shaped pastries made with warka (paper-thin pastry similar to filo pastry) that may be sweet or savory. Savory fillings include spinach or Swiss chard with onions, garlic, and cumin, or rice and coarsely ground almonds. Sweet briouats filled with pounded dates or figs, or almond paste are usually served for festivals, marriages, or other special occasions.
Like most North Africans, Moroccans have a sweet tooth. Rich sweets and cakes are not usually served at the end of a meal, but at any time during the day with a glass of mint tea. Traditional pastries include m’hanncha (the serpent), a coiled pastry made with warka and filled with almond paste flavored with orange-flower water and dusted with powdered sugar and cinnamon, and kaab el ghzal (literally, gazelle’s horns), crescent-shaped pastries filled with dates or almonds. Shebbakia (deep-fried pastries in the shape of rosettes that are dipped in honey and coated in sesame seeds) are usually served during Ramadan. Jabane is Moroccan nougat.
Algerian cooking is less spicy than that of Morocco and Tunisia although the Algerians are fond of dersa (a hot sauce made with garlic, ground caraway seeds or cumin, and sweet and hot pepper, that is usually served with vegetables or fried eggs). Traditional salads include h’miss (a chopped roast pepper and tomato salad) and badendjel m’charmel (roast eggplant dressed with olive oil, vinegar, garlic, and ground caraway seeds). Soups—chorba, djari, or harira—are usually rich in vegetables and legumes. Several kinds of pasta are made, including rechta (egg noodles) and trida (little pasta squares), as well as rice, couscous, and berkoukes and m’hamsa, both of which are similar to couscous but with a large grain. Mesfouf is a sweet couscous with raisins or dates.
Algerians are fond of eggs and pancakes, especially m’hadjeb (a savory pancake filled with fried onions, tomatoes, garlic, and hot peppers). Egg dishes include bayd maqli bil dersa (fried eggs with hot sauce), and chakchouka (a delicious vegetable stew that is cooked with eggs that has many variations). Other vegetable dishes of note are khalota, a spicy vegetable stew reminiscent of the Provencal ratatouille, and yamma wicha (eggplant simmered with chickpeas, fresh coriander, cinnamon, and rice).
Briks or boureks are delicious savory pastries made with paper-thin sheets of pastry called dioul that are similar to the Moroccan warka. Briks are often filled with spinach, Swiss chard, potatoes, egg, or cheese, and spices, and deep-fried.
Meals usually end with fresh or dried fruit, a bowl of fruit salad scented with orange-flower water, or perhaps a light milk pudding or cream. Traditional pastries such as knidlette (little tarts filled with almond paste), sfendj (ring-shaped doughnuts), and kaak bel qaress (lemon cakes) are usually prepared for religious festivals and special occasions. Bradj (date-filled pastries) are often served with leben (a kind of buttermilk).
The cooking of Tunisia and Libya are influenced by Italian and Ottoman cuisines. All kinds of pasta dishes are made, especially in Libya, with sauces highly seasoned with chili, cinnamon, fresh coriander, and parsley. Rishtit kas kas are homemade egg noodles with a chickpea sauce. Tunisians like their food hot and spicy. Harissa comes in varying strengths from hot to fiery. Mezze or kemia, as they are called in Tunisia, include a variety of raw and cooked salads. The most well-known are mzoura (a cooked carrot salad spiced with harissa and cumin and salada mechouia (a roast pepper and tomato salad).
Breiks (deep-fried savory or sweet pastries) are the pride of the Tunisian kitchen. Breiks are similar to the Algerian boureks and Moroccan briouats except they are prepared with a paper-thin pastry called malsouka that is made with semolina instead of flour. One of the classic fillings for breiks is a whole egg, but they may also be filled with potatoes, cheese, or tuna fish. Sweet breiks are usually filled with date or almond paste, dusted with sugar, and served hot or cold.
In Tunisia, couscous is usually served with harissa or hhlou, a sweet and sour condiment made with dried apricots, chestnuts, or pumpkin. Qalib kesksou, a Libyan dish, consists of couscous topped with a beaten egg, tomato sauce, and grated cheese and baked in the oven. Other Libyan specialties include roz bil-tamar (rice with dates and pistachios) and sansafil maghli (salsify fritters).
Tunisian pastries and cakes clearly demonstrate the mix of Italian and Ottoman influences, especially boka di dama (an almond sponge cake), manicotis (deep-fried pastries coated in sugar syrup), and scoudilini (a sponge cake dredged in sugar syrup and filled with a rich almond cream). Scoudilini is a Passover specialty of Sephardic Jews who originally came from Livorno. Libyan pastries include lugmat el quadi (doughnuts coated in honey) and dableh (deep-fried pastries similar to Moroccan shebbakia). Halva ditzmar is a rich sweetmeat made with dates, figs, walnuts, honey, aniseed, and grated chocolate.
ANDALUSIA THE LEVANT
CATALONIA THE BALEARIC ISLANDS
“For Spain is a mystery and I am not at all convinced that those who live within the peninsular and were born there understand it much better the I, but that we all love the wild, contradictory, passionately beautiful land there can be no doubt.”
—James Michener, Iberia
Spain is a country of extremes—of climate, terrain, and temperament. Spaniards have hot tempers, high spirits, and a strong sense of individuality. It is a unique land cut off from the rest of Europe by the Pyrenees. As the travel author Jan Morris writes: “Whichever way you enter her, from Portugal, France, Gibraltar, or the open sea, instantly you feel a sense of separateness, a geographical fact, exaggerated by historical circumstance.”
Throughout its history, Spain has been a melting pot of cultures: Iberian, Celtic, Phoenician, Roman, Arabic, Berber, Jewish, and many others. In the first millennium B.C., the Phoenicians settled along its southern shores and called the land “Shapan,” the Hidden Land (sometimes translated as “the Land of Rabbits”) from which Espana is derived. Although the Carthaginians first introduced the olive and the vine to Spain, it was the Romans who planted olives on a grand scale. Spain produced such vast quantities of olive oil, wine, wheat, and raisins that Baetica (the Roman name for modern-day Andalusia) became one of the richest provinces of the Roman Empire.
In A.D. 711, the Arab Muslims (sometimes called the Moors) crossed the straits of Gibraltar and swept through Spain, gaining control of most of the land, except for a few states in the north. Arab rule lasted over seven hundred years. The Arab influences were profound on all aspects of Spanish culture, art, architecture, literature, philosophy, and especially its cuisine.
The Moors introduced a wide range of new foodstuffs: oranges, lemons, eggplant, asparagus, artichokes, spinach, figs, dates, apricots, pomegranates, almonds, pistachios, rice, and sugar, as well as new spices from the orient: cinnamon, nutmeg, cumin, aniseed, ginger, sesame, coriander, and saffron. New irrigation systems were set up—aqueducts, underground canals, waterwheels, and windmills. Rice was cultivated along the coast, especially around Valencia. Orchards of apples, peaches, cherries, and citrus fruit were planted. New sweetmeats were introduced and fine pastries soaked in honey and flavored with rose and orange-blossom water.
Spain prospered and Cordoba, the seat of the Caliphate, became the most cultivated city in Europe, next to Constantinople. The Jews also thrived under Arab rule. Jews have lived in Spain since the destruction of the First Temple by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. They called the land Sepharad, which means “Spain” in Hebrew. Before the Arab conquest of Spain, the Jews had suffered a hundred years of persecution by the Visigoths, but under Muslim rule, many Jews rose to prominence as poets, philosophers, scientists, financiers, doctors of medicine, and statesmen. However, in 1492, after Ferdinand and Isabella defeated the last Moors in the Kingdom of Granada, the Jews, except the conversos, were expelled from Spain, taking their language and their culture with them. Most fled to North Africa and the eastern Mediterranean, especially Constantinople and Thessalonika. Many of their descendants today still speak Ladino or Judesmo—a language that evolved from medieval Spanish mixed with Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, and Turkish—and cook dishes that date back to fifteenth-century Spain.
It was no coincidence that Columbus discovered America in the same year of the Christian reconquest of Spain. Columbus was sent by Ferdinand and Isabella to seek out new trade routes to Asia in order to avoid trading with the Muslim Middle East. The discovery of the New World brought the introduction of a whole range of new foodstuffs to Spain: potatoes, tomatoes, maize, squash, all kinds of beans, sweet and hot peppers, avocados, and chocolate.
After the accession of the Hapsburgs to the Spanish throne in the sixteenth century, Spain became the most powerful country in the world, ruling Austria, the Netherlands, the Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, with colonies in North and Central America and most of South America. As a result, Spain had one of the world’s richest and most varied cuisines.
Unfortunately when the Spanish throne was bequeathed to a Bourbon king in 1759, French cooking was adopted by the Spanish court and the upper classes, and Spanish cooking was considered inferior. However, traditional Spanish cooking was never totally eclipsed. In the nineteenth century, a new element, tapas, was introduced into the Spanish culinary heritage. Tapas means “lid” or “cover.” Originally, a slice of bread was placed over a glass of sherry or wine to keep off dust or flies in summer. Later a piece of cheese was added to make it more appetizing. Tapas bars originated in Seville, but today they are found all over Spain.
Today Spanish cooking is regional cooking. The Mediterranean cuisines of Andalusia, The Levant, Catalonia, and the Balearic Islands have little in common with the cooking of Galicia or Asturias in the north. Andalusian cooking is based on olive oil, garlic, and plenty of vegetables. The most famous dish is “gazpacho,” a chilled vegetable soup or liquid salad. Originally gazpacho was made with olive oil, garlic, wine vinegar, and bread, all pounded together in a mortar and thinned with water. Later chopped tomatoes and peppers were added. Today there are many versions. Jose Carlos Capel gives at least sixty recipes for gazpacho in his book on Andalusian cooking. Andalusians love fried vegetables, especially potatoes, eggplant, zucchini, and peppers, which are usually served as a separate course. Flavors reflect the Arab influence: habas a la andaluza (broad beans simmered with onions, tomatoes, and cumin), acelgas a la sevillana (Swiss chard with raisins and pine nuts), and alcachofes a la sevillana (sauteed artichokes and potatoes in a garlic and saffron sauce). Malaga wine and sherry from the Bodegas of Jerez-de-la-Frontera are widely used in cooking.
Eggs are prepared in a variety of ways—boiled, fried, shirred, scrambled with all kinds of vegetables, and of course, made into tortillas. The Spanish tortilla or omelet, like its relative the Italian frittata, is round and flat like a pancake and usually contains potatoes or some other vegetable. The tortilla andaluza de cebolla is made with onions cooked until they are very soft and caramelized. Tortilla sevillana includes onions, tomatoes, red peppers, and mushrooms.
The Moorish influence is reflected in the wide variety of sweet pastries and desserts rich in honey and nuts such as pestiños (deep-fried pastries flavored with anise and white wine) and alfajores (almond and honey sweetmeats that are made in Sidona for Christmas). Other traditional desserts include yemas de San Leandro (candied egg yolks made by nuns of the convent of San Leandro in Seville) and tocino de cielo (roughly translated as “heavenly bacon”), a kind of cream caramel rich in egg yolks.
Several fine ewe’s milk cheeses are made in Andalusia: Queso de Grazalema (a hard cheese similar to Manchego), Queso de los Pedroches (a soft cheese produced near Cordoba), and Moro (a soft, creamy cheese made in the province around Seville).
The Levant, Land of the Sunrise, is made up of the provinces of Valencia, Castellon de la Plana, Alicante, and Murcia. Valencia is the birthplace of paella. Paella is named after the shallow, round iron pan in which it is cooked. Although paella is traditionally made with fish, some versions (such as paella huertana) are made only with vegetables. Other rice dishes include moros y christianos (Moors and Christians), which is made with black beans and white rice, and arroz con acelgas (rice with Swiss chard).
Along the flat coastal strip lies the fertile huertas (market gardens) of Valencia, which produces a wealth of vegetables and fruits: broad beans, peas, green beans, asparagus, onion, garlic, olives, capers, melons, peaches, apricots, plums, cherries, pears, Muscat grapes, lemons, grapefruit, and of course, Valencia oranges. Elche in Alicante has the only date grove in Europe. Almonds also flourish and appear in many desserts and sweetmeats. The most famous confection is turron (nougat), which is made in Jijona and Alicante.
Cheeses from Valencia include Tronchon (a semi-hard cheese made with goat’s and ewe’s milk) and Queso fresco Valenciano or Puzol, as it is sometimes called (a fresh goat’s cheese).
Further south, the huertas of Murcia produce early spring vegetables and salad greens. The region is famous for its fine tomatoes and peppers, both of which appear in tortilla murciana (a thick omelet that sometimes includes eggplant).
Catalonia lies in the northeast corner of Spain, between the French and Andorran border, and Valencia. The Catalans are a fiercely independent people who have retained their own language and culture. At the height of its power in the fifteenth century, Catalonia, together with the Kingdom of Aragon, ruled much of the Mediterranean coast from the Levant to Provence, as well as Corsica, Sardinia, The Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, and the Duchy of Athens.
The Catalan cuisine is the oldest in Spain. The first gastronomic text, the Libri de Sent Sovi, appeared in Catalan in 1324. It was followed by Rubert de Nola’s Libre de Coch, which was first printed in 1477 and contains recipes that are still prepared in Catalonia today.
Catalan cuisine has much in common with Provençal cooking. It is based on four sauces: allioli (a garlicky mayonnaise), picada (a thick paste made with toasted almonds and hazelnuts and flavored with saffron), sofregit (a rich tomato and onion sauce), and samfaina (which is made with onion, tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, and eggplant and resembles the Provençal ratatouille. Another popular sauce is romesco, which originated in Taragona. Romesco is made with sauteed almonds, bread crumbs, tomatoes, and sweet and hot peppers.
Catalonia is olive oil and wine country, both of which were introduced by the Romans. The Romans also taught the Catalans the art of leavening bread. Catalan meals usually begin with pa amb tomaquet, slices of country bread (toasted or not) that are rubbed with garlic and tomatoes and sprinkled with olive oil. Catalans love fried, stuffed, and roasted vegetables—especially peppers, eggplant, and all kinds of mushrooms. They are also fond of pasta (many Italians emigrated to Barcelona in the early nineteenth century), especially canalons (cannelloni) and fideus (short, thin vermicelli that is not cooked, like pasta, in a pot of boiling water, but sautéed in olive oil in a shallow pan and cooked like paella with hot water slowly added until it is absorbed). Fideus is thought to derive from the Arabic word fada, meaning “to overflow.”
Desserts include the ubiquitous crema catalana (a rich custard cream topped with caramelized sugar similar to the French crème brulée) and menjar blanc (a chilled almond pudding which the French also claim as their own under the name of blancmange). Mel i mato is a dish of fresh white cheese similar to Italian ricotta that is sweetened with honey.
The Balearic Islands have a long history of invasions by Romans, Vandals, Byzantines, Moors, and Barbary pirates. Even the English occupied Minorca in the eighteenth century. The islands have many cultural links to Catalonia, which is reflected in their language—a dialect of Catalan—and their cuisine. Mallorca’s most famous dish is probably sopa mallorquinas, a dry bread and cabbage soup that is rich in tomatoes, onions, and garlic and prepared in a greixoneira, a shallow earthenware pot with a rounded base similar to a wok. Mallorcans make various savory tarts called cocas which are similar to pizze, but without the cheese. Cocarois are spinach turnovers with raisins and pine nuts.
Pastries and confections often include almonds. Gato (a moist almond cake) is traditionally made for Christmas and for various fiestas. One of Mallorca’s most famous desserts is gelat d’ametilla (an almond sorbet). Greixonera de Brossat is an almond cheesecake made with Requeson cheese flavored with cinnamon and lemon rind.
The cooking of Menorca is less spicy than that of Mallorca. Menorca is famous for its fine vegetables, especially onions, leeks, tomatoes, cabbage, and potatoes. Bread is a staple and held in high esteem. Traditionally, the most important dish of the poor was oliaigua, a simple garlic soup made with onions, garlic, olive oil, parsley, and water. Today there are many variations, made with tomatoes, leeks, cabbage, asparagus, cress, or eggs. Oliaigua was once eaten for breakfast, lunch, and supper with plenty of pan casero (homemade bread).
Like Mallorcans, Menorcans have a sweet tooth. Numerous pastries and cakes are made including estrellas (sugar cookies), buñuelas (doughnuts), carquinols (almond biscuits), congret (a kind of sponge cake made with mashed potatoes), and amargas, an almond sweetmeat that is traditionally made for Christmas.
No part of the world can be more beautiful than the western and southern coasts of Turkey.
—Freya Stark, Alexander’s Path
Turkey lies on the northeast corner of the Mediterranean astride two continents—Europe and Asia. The Turks are proud of their history and proud of their cultural heritage. Turkey has a wealth of classical monuments and biblical sites. It is a land of tremendous contrasts, with its rugged mountains and wooded hillsides that drop sharply down to the sea, the strange volcanic landscape of Cappadocia and the rolling steppes of Central Anatolia. Turkey is surrounded by the sea on three sides: the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara to the north, the Aegean to the west, and the Mediterranean to the south.
Turkey has a long and turbulent history. It is home to the oldest town known to man—at Catal Hoyuk near Konya around 7500 B.C. where irrigation was first used and where animals were probably first domesticated. Around 200 B.C. the Hittites—an Indo-European people from the Balkans—swept across the land and established their first empire in Anatolia. The Hittites were followed by the Phrygians, Lydians, Persians, the armies of Alexander the Great, and the Romans. After the Roman Empire was divided into eastern and western parts, Constantine moved the seat of the Eastern Roman Empire in 330 A.D. to Byzantium, which he renamed Constantinople. Later, after Constantine’s death, the empire became known as the Byzantine Empire. Byzantine rule lasted more than seven hundred years.
Turkish cooking is a reflection of Turkish history. The Turks were descendants of nomadic Turkic tribes from Central Asia. Little is known of their diet except that it included unleavened bread or pastry made of wheat flour, and various milk products and cheeses. One dish, manti (a kind of ravioli similar to the Chinese wonton that an early Turkic tribe, the Uyghurs, adopted from their Chinese neighbors), is still eaten in Turkey today. Other dishes that originated in Central Asia are togyar çorbasi (a yoghurt soup thickened with wheat flour), cörek (a ring-shaped bun), early forms of börek (savory pastries), and tarhana (a kind of dough or soup base made with fermented wheat flour and dried curds). Güveç, a kind of vegetable stew cooked in an earthenware pot, is another pre-Anatolian dish. The name is thought to derive from kömeç or gömmeç, meaning “buried”—presumably because the earthenware pot was buried in ashes until its contents were cooked.
The essence of Turkish cooking was already established in the Seljuk Period (1071-1299 A.D.). The Seljuks, one of the most powerful Turkic clans, ruled Persia and much of the eastern Islamic world before they invaded Anatolia in the eleventh century. Rice pilav, yahni (vegetable stews), and stuffings that included dried fruit and nuts were all adopted from the Persians. The Greeks introduced the Turks to olive oil and showed them how to bake round loaves of bread. The thirteenth-century Sufi poet, Rumi, often mentions food in his writings, notably tutmac (a dish of lentils and noodles that was popular all over Anatolia until the nineteenth century, but is little known today), wheat soup, bulgur (cracked wheat), a wide range of vegetables and fruit, pickles, ekmek (bread), savory pastries coated in honey, halva or halvah made with grape juice or almonds, and zerde (a saffron-flavored rice pudding).
The Ottoman Period was a great influence not only on Turkish cuisine, but on the cooking of the whole of the eastern Mediterranean. The Ottoman Empire lasted for over six hundred years. At its height, it stretched from the Danube, across the Balkans to Syria, Egypt, and much of North Africa. Ottoman cooking was primarily developed in the Palaces of the Sultans, especially the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, where chefs, assisted by a host of apprentices, specialized in the preparation of every classification of food: soups, vegetable dishes, pilav, bread, sweet and savory pastries, syrups and jams, helva, yoghurt, and even pickles. The preparation of these dishes was not just restricted to the palaces, but was also familiar to most of the population of the Ottoman cities. By the mid-seventeenth century, forty-three food guilds (esnaj) had been set up in Istanbul to organize the preparation and selling of foods, including cheese and börek makers, pastry cooks, bakers, fritter makers, yoghurt makers, pickle makers, oil merchants, butter merchants, grocers, and fruit merchants with a separate guild of watermelon sellers, many of whom are still in existence today.
Contemporary Turkish cooking is based on the use of fresh ingredients served in season. Mint, dill, and flat-leaf parsley are the favorite herbs. Cumin, allspice, cinnamon, kirmizi biber (sweet or hot pepper), and sumak—with its characteristic tart, lemony flavor—are the predominant spices used in the Turkish kitchen.
Meals usually begin with a selection of meze (appetizers) and salads. Meze derives from the Arabic word mezaq, meaning the taste or savor of a thing. Meze include bit-size cubes of beyaz peynir (white cheese) marinated in olive oil, mercimek koftesi (small balls of mashed lentils and bulgur), fasulye piyasi (a white bean salad), tomatesli patlicanli tavasi (fried eggplants in a tomato and garlic sauce), and ezme (a dish of almost any puréed vegetable mixed with olive oil and vinegar or garlic and yoghurt). Meze are usually served with raki (an anise-flavored drink distilled from grapes).
The Turkish cuisine has a vast repertoire of vegetable dishes. Vegetables are stuffed, made into fritters, or gently stewed in olive oil or zeytinyağli. Classic dishes include imam bayildi (literally, “the priest fainted”), a dish of eggplants stuffed with onions, tomatoes, garlic, and parsley and dressed with so much olive oil that the priest was overcome, kabak mucveri (zucchini and white cheese fritters), and zeytinyagli yaprak dolmasi (vine leaves stuffed with rice, currants, pine nuts, and herbs and cooked in olive oil).
All kinds of rice pilav are made, especially with eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes, peas, currants and pine nuts, carrots, and chickpeas. Pilav is also made with bulgur (cracked wheat) instead of rice. Borek (savory pastries) are made with yufka (thin sheets of dough similar to filo pastry) as well as various puff and flaky pastries. Fillings include spinach, white cheese, potato and onion, pumpkin, zucchini, mushroom, and green lentils.
Bread is a staple, especially pide (a soft round bread with a hollow pouch). Pide is sometimes stuffed with cheese or vegetables. In the region around Antalya, pide is often spread with hibes (a paste made with crushed chickpeas, yoghurt, red pepper, and onions). Misir ekmegi (cornbread) is popular in eastern and central Anatolia. Simit (ring-shaped rolls coated in sesame seeds) are sold by street vendors all over Turkey.
Some traditional desserts include a variety of sweet pastries coated in sugar syrup with such evocative names as kiz memesi kadayif (young girls’ breasts), kadin gobeği (ladies’ navels), and dilber dudaği (beauty’s lips). Aşure is a sweet rice pudding made with whole wheat, legumes, nuts, and dried fruit that used to be made to celebrate Noah’s salvation from the flood. Today it is eaten on the tenth day of Muharren to commemorate the martyrdom of Mohammed’s grandsons, Hasan and Huseyin. Turks are fond of all kinds of kompostosu (fruit compôtes) and muhallebiler (chilled milk puddings) that are flavored with almonds, pistachios, coconut, and rose and orange-flower water.