Posts Tagged ‘olive oil’

Crete Gifts and Souvenirs to take home

Sunday, May 22nd, 2011

Everybody who comes to the island of Crete has a wonderful time. They leave this sun drenched island relaxed and tanned, ready to face their journey home in a good frame of mind.

Most visitors leave Crete with mementos of their trip. Some take some locally brewed wine with them, others may take some of the delicious cheese they found in a mountain village shop and often many will take a bottle or two of the gorgeous olive oil that is produced on the island.

Ceramic jug from Crete

There are many things to buy to remind you of your holiday in Crete and these include the lovely jewellery you can find in many of the shops on the island. A lot of this exquisite jewellery is designed on the different cultures that inhabited Crete many centuries ago and include the Minoans, the Archaic and Byzantine people who loved their gold and silver jewellery so much.

If you have ever seen the fabulous bronze and ceramic reproductions of Minoan and Cretan art you will want to buy a piece to take home with you to remind you of the beauty of Crete.

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There are paintings, tea shirts, soaps made from olive oil, traditional sweets, honey and the wonderfully aromatic herbs that grow in abundance all over the island, to name but a few of the objects and foods that you will find.

Cretans are very proud of their heritage and crafts today are done in very much the same manner as they were done in ancient times. The attention to detail in everything that you find will impress you. This lovely island in the Med has so much to offer you both during your visit and after you leave because your memory of your stay here will always bring a smile to your face.

It is great fun wondering through a town or a village discovering the lovely things you can buy for yourself or maybe as a gift for a member of your family or a good friend back home. You will always find something that you just have to buy when you are in Crete. From the artisanal gift to the delicious olive oil there is a taste of the island that you will want to take back with you.

Taking a souvenir home will remind you that this lovely island is calling you back to visit her again, sooner rather than later. Like the Lady of the Kournas Lake, the island will beckon you back so she can take care of you during your stay on the island of Crete.

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The sun, the sea and the olive groves

Sunday, May 1st, 2011

For the people of Crete, this beautiful and tranquil island that lies in the Mediterranean Sea, olive oil is at the heart of their entire culture.

Dating back from ancient times the olive groves of Crete have been famed for the quality of olive oil that is produced from them. The Minoans traded this valuable commodity with the Egyptians and other civilisations. Precious metals and jewels were brought back to the island by the Minoans as some of the things that were traded for their valuable oil.

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It was transported in ‘Kamares’, very thin pottery jars that were designed by Minoan potters especially to transport the many goods they introduced to foreign shores.

Olive oil is still a precious commodity for the island of Crete and the world appreciates the wonderful quality of the oil is produced here.

Cretan olive oil

Cretans are proud of their olive groves and they take the processing of their oil very seriously. The first pressing produces extra virgin olive oil which is the purest kind of oil in the world. The extra virgin olive oil that is produced in Crete is green rather than yellow in colour, making it very different than other oils that are on the market.

One tablespoon of olive has 120 calories, 14 grams of fat and no cholesterol whatsoever. Olive oil takes a long time to mature; the newly pressed oil has a bitter taste and needs time to achieve its peak in taste, which is at around a year after it has been processed.

Cretan olives
For 5000 years Cretan olive oil has been thought to be the best in the world and it owes this to the wonder soil, the fantastic climate and the ideal combination of sea breezes and pure mountain air that makes up the island of Crete.

You will see olive groves all over the island and they are a vital part of the Cretan countryside. There are some olive trees that are as old as the hills themselves dating back to 15th or 16th century and these trees are highly cherished by the people of Crete. Locals claim to have the oldest tree in the world found at Pano Vouves, in Kolymvari, Chania and believe this ancient olive tree to be 5000 years old.

For the Cretan people throughout time, the olive tree and the groves were considered to be sacred. Ancient frescoes, paintings and pottery depict the olive tree as being part of their mythology. The gift of an olive branch from the Goddess Athena to the city of Athens made them choose her as their patron Goddess and thus naming their city after her. The olive tree plays an intrinsic role in Greek mythology and is the symbol for peace and victory for the people of Greece today.

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Crete passionate about Chania Market

Thursday, April 28th, 2011

Falling in love with the island of Crete is easy with all the wonders that it has to offer visitors, it would be hard not to do so. Becoming passionate about the food in Crete is also something that tourists cannot avoid either and one the ways of becoming so passionate is to visit the grand building that houses the incredible market of Chania.

This gorgeous market offers every imaginable ingredient that makes up traditional food and Cretan specialities.

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It first opened at the beginning of the 19th century to celebrate unification of Crete to Greece and was modelled on the market of Marseilles in the south of France which is renowned all over Europe as the best indoor market to be found on that continent.
The market building in Chania is architecturally magnificent and entering it everyone experiences a feeling of pure delight.

There are over 70 shops and cafes inside where tourists and locals can shop and enjoy traditional dishes in a beautifully cool environment.

Chania Crete

The atmosphere in the market is vibrant with the wonderfully full aromas of fresh herbs, bread, coffee and spices wafting through the air around you.

Butchers, bakers, fishmongers and grocers are all vying for space amidst the numerous cafes in a uniquely Cretan setting. There are cheese stalls with vegetable and fruit stands that will tempt you with all their colourful displays of fresh produce. There are stalls that sell the wonderful Cretan honey, olive oil and Raki.

The small cafes serve delicious Cretan dishes so visitors to the market can sit down and enjoy sampling all that there is on offer and watch the shoppers wandering through the market as they do their daily shopping. The market opens every day from 8am until about 1.30pm and every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday it is open in the evenings from 5pm until 8pm. It is a wonderful place to visit after exploring the island or having just enjoyed the seemingly endless hours of sunshine on some quiet beach that you have discovered that day.

Whether you go to the market just to admire the building from the outside or to go inside and taste the wonderful dishes that are served in the small cafes that intermingle with the shops and stalls, you will marvel at the whole vibrant and lively scene that you discover. For whatever reason you visit the market there is no doubt at all that you will fall passionately in love with everything you see here and one visit will never be enough because you will want to come back to Chania market to relive the experience you have had in one of the most unique indoor markets on the island of Crete.

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Crete and the wonderful Cretan Diet

Monday, April 25th, 2011

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

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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

Yemista: Greek Stuffed Tomatoes and Peppers

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.

olive oil

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.

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