Let’s follow up. Your faithful digital editor’s pescetarianism has proven to be sustainable, for the most part.
My vague culinary objective for the past five years, and probably long before, has been to steer my food intake toward a Mediterranean-style regimen, with vegetables appearing in greater quantities and meat, while permitted, consumed far more rarely than before. Dairy and fish remain on the table.
In 2021, I noted in this space that I’d made it three months meatless (red) as well as non-fowled. There have been ups and down, of course; it’s an aim, not the law. We’ve been honoring a resolution to dine at home, which implies meal-planning and cooking, both of which suit me.
Alcoholic beverages retain their allure, although in recent years my volume of consumption has steadily declined to a half dozen drinks a week, it even that. While it has taken time to face reality, it seems my days as a trencherman have concluded. When I decide to revert to the old ways and feast, the results are pain and malaise.
The trick is acceptance. I seem to have become a nibbler and a sampler. Perhaps there is genuine value in playing against type.
As for the notion of a Mediterranean “diet,” the most relevant aspect to me is how good it tastes. From Nice to Cairo, and Salonika to Marrakesh, has there ever been a menu item from Mediterranean locales that didn’t satisfy me?
Of course, so much of it comes down to one’s own personal fetishes. I adore all food from everywhere: Asia, Africa and South America, even Evansville on occasion.
However, speaking for myself alone (as life tends to be for me), the stork was utterly mistaken in dropping me here, by the Ohio. It should have been the Danube, or the Liffey, perhaps the Tiber. I was intended to be European, and as such, the Mediterranean rim is the foundation upon which the Old World was built.
Having concluded the experiential prelude, we now pass from dolmades to the moussaka.
The secret of the Mediterranean diet?, by Joanna Blythman (The Guardian)
Researchers at King’s College London and the University of California claim to have identified the “secret” underpinning the oft-quoted healthfulness of the Mediterranean diet. From their lab tests on mice (not just any old mice, genetically modified ones) they conclude that when olive oil and vegetables are eaten together, they form nitro fatty acids that help...Read more
