Exhibition
Presentation Of Exhibits By Section
Cretan Diet
In 1947-8, the Rockefeller Foundation carried out a wide-ranging study of the European Mediterranean diet as regards disease and longevity. The results showed that Crete had the lowest rates of death from cardiovascular disease and the greatest longevity, a phenomenon mainly due to high consumption of olive oil.
According to the ethnographic survey of the Museum of Cretan Ethnology, centred on the daily diet of farmers and herdsmen, the healthy properties of the Cretan diet are due to more complex parameters: a series of products is consumed on the island, qualitatively and quantitatively different to those in other areas of Greece and the Mediterranean.
Here are a few brief examples:
ANIMAL PRODUCTS
Meat
In general terms, the percentage of lamb and goat eaten is low, except among herders. Rabbit, chicken, or game is usually cooked on Sundays.
Each family has a pig which is slaughtered at Christmas. The pork is cut into long strips and marinated for 24 hours in basins full of vinegar, lemon and a little salt, a typically Cretan technique. This pickled meat is used to stuff sausages which are then smoked over the fire with the rest of the strips and fresh sage. The other parts of the pig are fried and preserved in pots of lard. This is the only pork consumed in rural areas, lasting 3-4 months. As lemon and vinegar are used in the preparation of many other foods, they may contribute to the breakdown of fatty acids in the body.
Snails
Cretans are the greatest consumers of snails in Europe. All five species found in Crete live wild in a particularly favorable natural environment. They are cooked in many ways and eaten almost all year round. Snails secrete a powerful chemical which may protect the human body from fatty acid deposits.
Dairy produce
Cretans use sheep’s milk to make soft white cheese, a fatty gruyère-like cheese and a salty fermented cheese called Anthotyros. They produce neither butter nor yoghourt.
Goat’s milk is used to produce a soft cheese and a salty fermented Anthotyros-type cheese. Anthotyros is widely eaten, and fermented fat-free cheese is known to aid digestion.
Honey
This bee product was the only sugar-rich food in the Mediterranean basin that could be stored for long periods of time and was therefore greatly prized. Wild swarms abounded in the Cretan ecosystem and honey was an important export product in the Minoan period 5,000 years ago.
Traditional society preserves the habit of high annual consumption of honey in teas, with certain fried meats and with sweet cheese. An additional benefit is that honey contains powerful antiseptic herbal oils which are good for the nervous system.
PLANT PRODUCTS
Olive oil
Similar amounts of olive oil are consumed in Crete and many other areas of Greece, cooked in the same way. The difference lies in the quality of the oil and particularly its relatively high acid content, which may have a beneficial effect.
Olives
Cretans consume large quantities of a special type of olive, the stafidolia (raisin olive), so-called because it is wrinkled like a raisin. This is one of the large varieties of olive which are afflicted by a fungus when they begin to ripen in the autumn. This fungus causes the olive fruit to ferment, neutralising its powerful acids. The olive then falls to the ground, wrinkled and with a light brown skin. It is eaten as it is and contains enzymes which may be beneficial.
Barley rusks (paximadi)
The Cretans’ daily bread is in the form of a barley rusk, as it remains edible for many months. The barley is wholemeal and thus its well-known beneficial ingredients are consumed unaltered.
Edible wild greens
Wild greens are collected in rural Crete more than in any other area of Greece, due to their abundance (over 50 species), their many different flavours and the various ways of eating them: raw, boiled or stewed. They grow all year round, especially from autumn to spring. Most are endemic, but their possible health benefits are unknown.
DRINK
Teas
There is a wide variety of herbs on the island, many of them endemic. They are widely used in teas, especially at breakfast and in the winter, morning and evening, by the whole rural population. According to practical local folk medicine, each plant has healing properties which remain largely unexplored by science.
Wine
Local Cretan wines are mostly red, and therefore contain tannins, whose protective qualities are well known.
The consumption of wine in Crete must be the highest in Europe, as every adult male drinks at least half a litre daily.
Spirits
Tsikoudia , a spirit distilled from grapes, is also a daily habit among men coming home from work, at home in the afternoon and at the cafe in the evening, with an average consumption of 80g. daily. This clear drink, 35-40% proof, is a tonic for workers and the old and aids in the removal of harmful substances from the body.