Migliaccio is a typical dessert of the Carnival. It is part of the Napoli tradition, but it is consumed in all areas of Campania region in Italy. Its recipe has ancient origins and it seems to date back to the Middle Ages. As often happened, it was invented by some peasant woman who was trying...
Dill is very well known from ancient years. In ancient Greece dill plant was a sign of wealth and burnt dill oil to aromatize their homes. Soldiers placed burnt dill seeds on their wounds to heal. For ancient Egyptians dill was a medical plant that was used as an ingredient in the production of pain...
A fermented fish sauce called garum was a staple of Greco-Roman cuisine and of the Mediterranean economy of the Roman Empire, as the first-century encyclopedist Pliny the Elder writes in his Historia Naturalis and the fourth/fifth-century Roman culinary text Apicius includes garum in its recipes. The use of similar fermented anchovy sauces in Europe can...
The name basil is derived from Greek basileus “king”, because of the royal fragrance of this herb. Basileus “king” means essentially “people’s leader. Basil belongs to the family of Lamiaceae. Its leaves show an intense green color on the upper side and a green-gray color in the bottom side. Today, basil is cultivated in many...
What connects lemons with mob? Is it possible that all this illegal system started from lemon production? From a study in the “Journal of Economic History” we learn that all this craziness started back at the end of 19th century because of lemons. During the Napoleonian wars, scurvy was the main reason of sailors’ death...
The Copts are one of the oldest Christian communities in the Middle East. Although integrated in the larger Egyptian nation state, the Copts have survived as a distinct religious community forming around 10 to 20 percent of the population though estimates vary. They pride themselves on the apostolicity of the Egyptian Church whose founder was...
Greek pastries were very limited before 1922 when the Greeks of Asia Minor came as refugees in Greece. The country was very poor and the sweets people had, were based on simple ingredients they could find in nature. Some pastry shops that existed in big cities had French inspired sweets that could be enjoyed only...
Tínos is a beautiful island close to Greek mainland that has a history starting from ancient ages. It played a major role in ancient war against the Persians and was protected by Poseidon, god of sea and water. During Greek revolution against the Turkish Empire, the island contributed by offering many fighters and shelter to...
Back in the old days families used to go to church every Sunday morning. In those days, there was no television or computers or smart phones or tablets. Even telephone was a luxury that few families were able to acquire. The place, where all neighborhood was gathering to see each other and socialize, was the...
Between 1600BC and 1100BC a great civilization flourished in mainland Greece and more specifically in the Peloponnese peninsula; The Mycenaean Civilization. It grew so strong and powerful that dominated eastern Mediterranean Sea, Crete and the islands of Aegean Sea. The center of this civilization was the city of Mycenae, from which historians gave it its...
