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Mediterranean cuisine is the food of the areas around the Mediterranean Sea. Whether this is a useful category is disputed:

Mediterranian Cuisine in Dalmatia, Croatia.

The idea of the ‘standard Mediterranean diet’ ... is a modern construction of food writers and publicists in Western Europe and North America earnestly preaching what is now thought to be a healthy diet to their audiences by invoking a stereotype of the healthy other on the shores of the Mediterranean. Their colleagues in Mediterranean countries are only too willing to perpetuate this myth. The fact of the matter is that the Mediterranean contains varied cultures...^[1]

Around 1975, under the impulse of one of those new nutritional directives by which good cooking is too often influenced, the Americans discovered the so-called Mediterranean diet.... The name... even pleased Italian government officials, who made one modification: changing from diet—a word which has always seemed punitive and therefore unpleasant—to Mediterranean cuisine.^[2]

Given the geography, these nation-states have influenced each other over time and the cooking evolved into sharing common principles. Mediterranean cuisine is characterized by its flexibility, its range of ingredients and its many regional variations. The terrain has tended to favour the raising of goats and sheep.^{[citation needed]}

Fish dishes are also common, although today much of the fish is imported since the fisheries of the Mediterranean Sea are weak.^{[citation needed]} Seafood is still prominent in many of the standard recipes.^{[citation needed]}

Olive oil and garlic are widely used in Mediterranean cuisine. It is widely believed that Mediterranean cuisine is particularly healthful; see Mediterranean diet.^{[citation needed]}

Grilled meats, pita bread, hummus, and falafel are very popular forms of the eastern type of the cuisine.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] See also

[edit] Mediterranean

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• Albanian cuisine
• Algerian cuisine
• Arab cuisine
• Bosnian cuisine
• Catalan cuisine
• Croatian cuisine
• Cypriot cuisine
• Egyptian cuisine
• French cuisine
• Gibraltarian cuisine
• Greek cuisine
• Israeli cuisine
• Italian cuisine
• Jordanian cuisine
• Lebanese cuisine
• Libyan cuisine
• Maltese cuisine
• Montenegrin cuisine
• Moroccan cuisine
• Palestinian cuisine
• Portuguese cuisine
• Sardinian cuisine
• Sephardic cuisine
• Serbian cuisine
• Sicilian cuisine
• Slovenian cuisine
• Spanish cuisine
• Syrian cuisine
• Tunisian cuisine
• Turkish cuisine

[edit] Closely related

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• Middle Eastern cuisine
• Balkan cuisine

[edit] References

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