Diane Kochilas
Diane Kochilas discusses her book Ikaria: Lessons on Food, Life and Longevity From the Greek Island Where People Forget To Die. She also shares some recipes.
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Sweet Potato and Arugula Salad
Mushroom Stew
Fish Cooked Over Winter Greens
Grape Molasses-Chocolate Cake
Here are some of Diane's talking points for each recipe:
Salad:
This dish is basically an old Ikarian recipe. Potatoes and sweet potatoes, albeit New World crops, were important foods on the island. In fact, the soil and climate on ikaria are conducive to cultivating both. Sweet potatoes grow best on the south side of the island and they were mixed with greens like arugula, which grows wild and is really peppery. Lots of olive oil and some goat's milk cheese rounded out the dish.
Sweet potatoes were a treat. They were the dessert 75 years ago -- roasted in embers and eaten like that, plain, not with sugar (expensive) or honey.
Older people on the island have recounted to me their fondness for the sweet potato.
Mushroom Stew:
Ikaria is a mycologist's paradise. Even several types of truffles grow on the island.
Mushrooms are nature's sexiest food! Damp, moist, earthy, they inspire romantic cooking, perfect for Valentine's Day.
Dozens of different wild mushrooms grow on Ikaria. People forage for them avidly. The most beloved way to cook them is grilled and stewed, as in this recipe. It's naturally sweet from the onions and very earthy. It hits a nerve, umami-like.
Mushrooms kept Ikarians healthy and full in times of hardship. They contain many of the same nutrients as red meat but none of the fat or cholesterol.
Today mushrooms are being explored and increasingly used as an alternative to meat, and they are often combined with, say, ground meat in sauces and fillings.
Fish with Greens:
The Ikarian table is about greens. Greens in pies, boiled and served raw in salads, greens in stuffings, greens combined with protein like goat, lamb, pork, and, of course, fish. This dish is a perfect example of that.
Meat and fish were traditionally expensive. Dishes that combine protein and greens are common on the island. Pork and collards are another example. These combinations were a way to make an expensive ingredient more accessible by marrying it with something inexpensive and readily available. Greens provided the basic nutrition to many of the people on Ikaria who are now in their 90s.
Several hundred varieties of wild greens and herbs grow on the island.
Each has its season and locals know the therapeutic, nutritional and culinary uses and characteristics. This is knowledge passed down from generation to generation.
Grape Molasses-Choclate Cake:
Petimezi (grape molasses) is one of the world's oldest natural sweeteners. It's unfermented grape juice (must) reduced and clarified. It has a light syrupy consistency.
Grape molasses is very nutritious and especially rich in iron. Also, this sweetener has all the nutrients grapes have: disease-fighting antioxidants, vitamins, minerals. Vitamins A, C, and B6 and minerals such as potasssium, calcium, magnesium and iron are all in the juice.
Because it's a natural sweetener, our bodies metabolize it easily.
This traditional cake, perfumed with warm spices like cinnamon, is moist and comforting. It also features heart-healthy olive oil (1 cup) instead of butter.
The addition of chocolate is a new modern twist, and most appropriate for Valentine's Day.
This cake recipe can also be made into cupcakes.
