Dieticians seem terribly confused about foreign eating habits. They enthusiastically promote a Mediterranean diet, defined in the latest Predimed study as “does not include red meat or butter” and eating “fish, nuts, vegetables, fruits, and whole grains”. But wherever did they get the idea that Mediterranean people don’t eat red meat?
Clearly these “experts” have never heard of, let alone tasted, sheftalia, the celebrated Cypriot, caul fat-wrapped sausage made from pork and lamb, or dropped in on a Tunisian ‘mechoui’ - a whole lamb cooked on a spit. Not one has enjoyed a Greek stifado (beef and onion stew) or sunk their teeth into gyros (shavings of meat, usually pork). How did they miss that national dish when it’s on every corner from Thessaloniki to Crete? Only the exceptionally unobservant could visit Turkey without tripping over places selling kofta, and succulent Iskender kebab (usually lamb, sometimes beef).
In Sardinia, lamb, beef, and game cooked outdoors on a spit ‘alla brace’ is so ubiquitous it gets boring. Provençal daube is made with chunks of beef, traditionally bull meat, not Quorn cubes. Cured ham is the sine qua non of the Spanish Med diet. And be warned, Corsicans will react badly if you impugn the honour of their salted, dried, aged coppa (pork neck) and lonzu (pork loin).
I could go on, but I won’t; it’s just too embarrassing to flash a spotlight on such woeful ignorance. But let me just touch on the notion that Mediterranean people are keen on wholegrains. Apart from Palestinian maftoul, which contains a small amount of whole wheat, I can’t remember ever being served whole grains in the Med. Refined grains - bulgur, couscous, rice - are king.
Can there only ever be one universal dogmatic healthy eating formula? Nordic diets (heaps of fish, ferments, cured pork, liver) also seem to be life-sustaining. And it’s not all fish: Sweden even has its own version of haggis, pölsa. Isn’t Japan also a hot spot of sane eating in the world? Yet its shops are full of fatty Kobe beef.
I’m beginning to think that apostles of the mythical Med diet don’t get abroad enough. They need a holiday in the region, preferably a long one, and not at the taxpayer’s expense.
Joanna Blythman is a journalist and author of Swallow This
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