Crete's Culinary Sanctuaries

By JULIETTE ROSSANT Daphne Miller's The Jungle Effect: A Doctor Discovers the Healthiest Diets from Around the World – Why They Work and How to Bring Them Home (HarperCollins 2008) features a chapter on Crete (p. 89). Why Crete? It turns out it’s a cold spot for heart disease. A cold spot is a place or community where there is an unusually low number of people suffering from a particular disease (p. 17). I made my way to Crete where a food activist, a physician, a farmer, an organic grocer, a chef and wild food hunter, a waiter, and a small-town entrepreneur all offer their opinions about the most powerful heart-healthy foods. (p. 90) At the end of the chapter, she offers Three Steps to Eating Like a Cretan (pp. 123-125). The point is to help people, especially those with a propensity towards heart disease, to understand the Mediterranean diet in context and take steps to incorporate how and what Cretans eat into their own lives. The Jungle Effect goes on to examine other cold spots for Diabetes, Bowel Trouble, and Breast and Prostate Cancer, but it is the Cretan chapter that was most intriguing to Super Chef because it is the epicenter of the "Mediterranean Diet". How can chefs in America learn more about Crete and the Cretan diet? It turns out that Crete's Culinary Sanctuaries offers interactive educational programs in Crete that are specifically designed for chefs and other professionals. The program for chefs is called: The Mediterranean Diet: Refreshing Your Understanding, Translating it to the Plate. During the six-day accredited program, you meet producers of Crete’s cuisine on their farms, in their villages and kitchens. Presenters are noted organic olive oil and wine makers, fishers, artisan bakers, cheese makers, beekeepers, botanists and herbalists. The program is lead by Nikki Rose, CCS Founder & Director and graduate of the Culinary Institute of America. She told Super Chef : Along the way, we cook...make time to experiment in the kitchen with local chefs and eat great fresh & local food. This is information people can really use in their own work wherever they live… Here in Crete, visiting chefs can see good food with good flavor in action. They can see how people have been doing this for centuries. It's an invaluable experience (and good marketing for their careers and employers). They can see how sustainable foodways have worked in other regions of the world before the "New World" existed and use it to their advantage. The program is offered three times in the Fall: Sept 28 Oct 4; or Oct 5-11 or Oct 12-18. They also offer a post-conference trip, mostly hiking and visiting remote villages and historic sites along the way in the western mountains and south coast of Crete. CCS also offers programs for non-professional foodies throughout the year. Check their website. CCS is a finalist in National Geographic's Geotourism Challenge, "Celebrating Places, Changing Lives." The competition aims to identify innovations in tourism that sustain, enhance and preserve local culture and place. Super Chef urges its readers to cast their vote by June 11 for Crete's Culinary Santcuaries. Just click here. Previous articles: Beatrice Saalburg: Atelier de Peinture Botanique Technorati Tags: superchefblog, Juliette Rossant, super chef, celebrities, chefs, food, restaurants, cooking, branding, cuisine, blogging, food blogging --> back to Super Chef