Mediterranean Diet

Dishes which are easy to prepare, as well as the innate inventiveness of the people, have helped to make the gastronomy of the varios regions of Italy a world-famous art. Similary, the plain dishes of Cilento, coupled with the art of "making do" in the kitchen (typical of the local women who often had to get by on a budget which was barely sufficient even for minimum daily essentials), have earned world-wide fame for the culinary products of Cilento. This fame is also due in no small measure to the study of the local population carried out in the fifties by a famous American nutritionist, Ancel Keys, who had landed here with the Fifth Army. In this study, he had noted a lower incidence of some diseases compared with the United States.

As a result, the Mediterranean diet became very popular there in the seventies, when American scientists placed great emphasis on the prevention of those diseases with the diet studied by Keys in Cilento. Prof. Donato Lauria (who spends much of his time in Agropoli) followed this up and he and his colleagues demonstrated that a diet of cereals, greens, fruit and fish reduces both atherogenic cholesterol and the risk of cardio-vascular diseases, particulary atherosclerosis, hypertension, heart attacks and strokes. Thanks to the eco-hexa-pentanoic acids found in them, olive oil and fish (the staple diet of the people of the coastal districts of Cilento) constitute the arteries' best defence against the onset of atherosclerotic diseases.
Text from: Pro Loco Agropoli

Cilento's Products

THE MOZZARELLA

"Mozzarella: typical dairy product of the Campania region made exclusively from buffalo milk, or made with a mixture of buffalo and cows’ milk or just cows’ milk (in the later case having relatively less fat); a curd is prepared that is broken into fragments, drained of the whey and allowed to mature for a few hours before being immersed in water at a temperature of 80-90° and then kneaded to obtain a kind of filamentous cord from which the various shapes and sizes are obtained". The simple description of now the buffalo mozzarella is produced does not certainly do justice to the art and skill expressed by the "mozzarellai" as they repeat the centuries-old gestures.  Today, just like a hundred years ago, magnificent buffaloes graze freely in an ideal habitat, which permits them to produce milk that, gives the mozzarella from Campania an unmistakable quality, flavour and consistency that makes it a true gastronomic work of art.

Definition from the "Vocabolario della lingua italiana", Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana Giovanni Treccani, vol. II, pag. 330.

OLIVE AND EXTRAVIRGIN OLIVE OIL

 A greek myth attributes to Athena the creation of the first olive in the acropolis under Athens’s protection. For its mythic origin, but mainly for its economic and feeding utility, the olive has always recover a fondamental role in the culture, not only agrarian, of these populations. Since the old centuries, it was cultivated in the Mediterranean countries, as demonstrated in the antique writings and tools for oil extraction discovered in the territories inhabited by antique civilizations. In Italy, the olive was introduced around the 7^th c.B.C. with the arrival of the first greek colonists, first in Sicily and then in all Magna Greacia.

The Romans were great olive consumers and they use to conserve them in brines with oil and vinegar. They ate them during the fine banquets accompanied with wine; oil, it’s well known, slows down the alcohol absorbtion. The cilentan landscape, as all the other mild climate areas, is characterized by the massive presence of olive trees.

Today, the best quality of the Cilento is the one of Pisciotta, produced in almost all the National Park area. The virgin and extravirgin olive oil is from high quality, high nutritive value and is excellent in sauces and for fried food. It has a yellow-green colour, light fruit taste, no spicy sensation and can be keeped for three months after the crushing. Numerous are the agriculture industries in the Cilento region that dedicate to this biological production

THE LIMONCELLO

The limoncello, extracted from the lemon peel with a very old and simple proceeding, is a liqueur that because of its naturalness and fragrance brings all the perfume and tradition of these coastly lands. The recipe was probably invented on the Amalfitan Coast in places where the plant, splendidly integrated, is cultivated with the typical method called "terrazzamento" (various levels, as for a stairway).

Because of the particularity of its taste and perfume, the limoncello has known in the last fifteen years a vertiginous augmentation of production that brings it to the top places in national and international sales.

Since a while, another liqueur also based on lemon has come next to the first one. It is the lemon cream, poor limoncello’s cousin with a delicate taste, that is taking always more space on the market. We will surely ear about it in a near future.

THE ARTICHOKE
(Cynara scolymus)

The artichoke belongs to the composites. It is known only since the 15^th-16^th cent., but it has been widely grown in Campania (Plain of the Sele), Apulia, Latium and Sicily. It is an herbaceous plant with a rising stem, a subterranean rhizome and a flower or head protected by bracts (leaves) which (together with the tender heart) is its eatable part. There are "reflowering" and non-reflowering" varieties - according to whether the plant produces fruit in one or two seasons per year – and "thorny" and "non-thorny" ones – according to whether or not there are thorns on the leaves or on the tips of the bracts -. The Autumn fruit include: "Violetta di Provenza", "Violetto spinoso di Palermo", "Campagnano Romano", "Violetto di Napoli", "Spinoso di Liguria"; spring fruitine Varieties include: "Violetto di Toscana" and "Verde di Napoli". The artichoke is an extremely important vegetable. It can be eaten raw or preserved in oil, vinegar or brine and it is also used to extract essences for delicious liqueurs. It can be prepared in different ways: fricassee, breaded and fried, cooked in white wine, stewed, boiled, raw in salad, with rice, served with cream, stuffed with "ricotta" and so on. It is also valuable for its medicinal qualities: it is indicated for slight liver disorders, as it contains "cinnarin" which stimulates bile secretion . for its low sugar content, it can also be eaten by diabetics.