A short while ago farmers on the island of Crete made a giant wheel out of cheese which weighed in at a ton. It took the farmers three days and seven tons of sheep’s milk to create this incredible wheel. It will now take a minimum of four months to mature. The farmers have requested that their endeavours be entered into the Guinness book of records.
This story is typical of the fun and
the humour that Cretans are so well known for. It portrays their outlook on life in a classic and typical manner that brings a smile to everyone’s face. Hearing a story like this we are reminded of the poetic duets that are sung in the Tavernas on balmy evenings when everyone is enjoying themselves and laughing loudly at the lyrics that the songsters make up as they sing along together.
Farming in Crete is important as most of what is grown on the island form the basic ingredients for the famous Cretan Diet
Considered to be one of the healthiest diets in the world, rural Cretan men rarely suffer from any form of heart disease. Cretan men live to a ripe old age with the beautiful smile lines carved into their tanned and smiling faces. Many foreign dieticians have studied this diet to understand just why this is the case and they discovered that the reason was that the Cretan diet contains the much loved Cretan olive oil, and in plentiful amounts! It was discovered that the oil’s high content of monounsaturated fatty acids and antioxidants were a contributing factor for Cretan men to be so healthy and to live such long lives.
In Crete olive oil is used in just about every dish and speciality, it is the basis of many wonderfully simple recipes that are not only delicious because of the olive that is used in them but healthy too.
Soups, stew and vegetables are cooked in masses of olive oil and the refreshing salads that are so important to the Cretan Diet have olive oil dribbled generously all over them. There is just no getting away from olive oil when it comes to Cretan cuisine and this is why their diet is now known to be the healthiest on earth.
When visitors first come to Crete it does take a while to understand their love of olive oil, but thinking back to ancient times it was one of the main produces that they Minoans traded for the valuable jewels and precious metals. Egyptians and other races would trade these things in order to obtain this precious Cretan olive oil. So it is no wonder that the oil they produced meant such a lot to the ancient civilisations on Crete. In those days olive oil was as precious as petroleum oil is to us today. The very important difference being that ancient civilisations did not harm the earth with their hundreds of olive groves that adorned their beautiful island in the Mediterranean Sea.
