How this coast eats
The shared pantry
The Mediterranean diet became famous because epidemiologists walked into Greek and southern Italian villages and found people living long on olive oil, beans, greens, fish, bread, and wine. It is not a cleanse. It is a way of shopping. This page is the shared cupboard. The live shopping list — recipes you actually plan to cook — lives in Market.
Olive oil
The fat of four of these kitchens, and a guest in the fifth. Buy extra-virgin for finishing, a quieter oil for the pan. Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Greece drink it; France’s south does too.
Garlic, onion, tomato
The soffritto, the sofrito, the refogado. Almost every savory recipe in this book begins with one or all three, cooked slowly until the kitchen smells like a decision has been made.
The pig, the lamb, the boat
Jamón, guanciale, chouriço, confit. Lamb on the Greek fire. Salt cod as a Portuguese religion. The Mediterranean diet is not vegetarian — it is vegetables, legumes, and animals used with respect.
Wheat and rice
Bread to rub with tomato. Pasta water as sauce. Valencian rice that must stay in its pan. Phyllo that shatters. A cookbook of this coast is a cookbook of starch done properly.
Wine and vinegar
Not a pairing note — an ingredient. Coq au vin, mussels, gazpacho, a splash in the cataplana. Keep a dry white, a modest red, and a sherry vinegar.
Salt, lemon, herbs
Oregano in Greece, cilantro in Portugal, parsley everywhere, thyme and bay in France. Lemon is the acid of the east; vinegar of the west. Salt is not optional.
By chapter
- I. Portugal
Salt cod (bacalhau) · Extra-virgin olive oil · Piri-piri · Cilantro · Bay leaf · Vinho Verde
- II. Spain
Olive oil · Saffron · Pimentón · Jamón ibérico · Sherry vinegar · Rice
- III. France
Butter · Shallots · Thyme and bay · Wine · Dijon mustard · Crème fraîche
- IV. Italy
Olive oil · San Marzano tomatoes · Parmigiano-Reggiano · Guanciale · Dried pasta · Basil
- V. Greece
Olive oil · Oregano · Feta · Yogurt · Lemon · Phyllo