In the 1990s, with obesity reaching epidemic proportions in the United States and signs of its spread evident throughout western Europe, a study by Harvard University’s School of Public Health drew attention to the apparent benefits of the traditional dietary habits on Crete, especially with regards to cardiovascular diseases linked to metabolic syndrome–whose main risk factor is obesity. The Harvard Study amplified the seminal work of Ancel Keys who, as almost a half-century earlier, had first highlighted the benefits of a Mediterranean diet. It’s no surprise then that restaurateurs and marketers have jumped on the “Mediterranean cuisine” diet to promote their products. But what is traditional Cretan or Greek fare? Odyssey takes a look at campaigns by Crete and two of Greece’s largest island groups–the Cyclades and the Dodecanese–to safeguard their culinary traditions.

There’s an old joke about a café that offers three types of breakfast: English, Continental, and Greek–a cup of coffee and three cigarettes. This stereotype is inspired by contemporary habits rather than tradition, as in Greece, breakfast, while not the elaborate feast of hotel breakfast buffets, was usually a simple yet thoroughly nutritious combo of bread, cheese, and olives. In some rural areas, breakfast might be a bowl of trahanas–crushed wheat that has been boiled in milk and then dried in the sun–with a piece of feta on the side or even eggs with lemon juice, as is the custom in many parts of Crete.
The “Greek Breakfast” is now part of a campaign launched a couple of years ago by the Hellenic Foreign Trade Board under its Kerasma program, a branding initiative to promote Greek culinary traditions. Hoteliers have embraced “the Greek Breakfast” as part of a “culinary diplomacy” strategy aimed at adding value to the hospitality industry. It’s a good strategy. Food, as a means of promoting tourism, is effective–and the data exists to support this. One example is a Kairos consumer survey conducted in January in which more than half the respondents said that local cuisine was an important factor when booking a vacation.
Now, local business associations are taking this strategy one step further. Two separate initiatives–one, a joint initiative by the chambers of commerce of the Cyclades and Dodecanese island groups, and the second by the Regional Authority of Crete–aim at highlighting Greek island gastronomy and, through their respective programs, preserving and protecting it too. The former strives to do this through the Aegean Cuisine initiative, the latter through the Cretan Quality Agreement.
While the Aegean and Cretan programs vary, the concept is similar and the idea behind them simple: “brand” the culinary traditions by creating an identity for them, with visual symbols, either through an umbrella program like “Aegean Cuisine” or, as in the case of the Cretan Quality Agreement, certification.
These initiatives are more than timely. Consumers are increasingly concerned about health and show a growing interest in organic, natural, and seasonal foods with a smaller environmental footprint. The Mediterranean diet–with its emphasis on vegetables, fresh fruit, olive oil, pulses, grains, fish, poultry and little red meat–combines these two trends. A number of food companies have already jumped on the bandwagon, either by buying out small brands with “Mediterranean” product lines or by adding ingredients like olive oil to existing products for an illusory “Mediterranean” flavor. Both initiatives–Aegean Cuisine and the Cretan Quality Agreement– aim at capitalizing on the trend but also “protecting” Greek gastronomy by defining Greek cuisine.
“Gastronomy,” says Zoe Nowak, director of Cretan Quality Agreement, “is not a ‘product’ that we can put on a shelf, market, and promote, then expect people to go out and buy it; it’s a way of life, a part of our culture.”
Both initiatives play on the trend towards gastronomical tourism, that is, using local cuisine as an extension of a destination’s culture. Greek food fits the bill ideally: it varies regionally, it’s good to eat, and is good for you, too, according to an impressive body of research.
“For us it's more about reclaiming our pride and the right to our future. We know how beautiful and self-sufficient Crete is, and want to use the Cretan Diet as an axis around which we can develop the local economy in a way that it is based on our local competitive advantages–and not just sea-and-sun–and will help us promote and live from what is really part of us as Cretans–our culture, our diet, our products, our hospitality and people,” Nowak says.

The Aegean Cuisine initiative is a collaborative project of the Cyclades and Dodecanese chambers of commerce launched through the South Aegean Center for Business and Technology Development (KETA). It embraces the diverse culinary traditions of these islands, while highlighting the common elements of Greek gastronomy. In addition to local officials, the project has garnered the support and advice of leading chefs, restaurateurs and food writers like Lefteris Lazarou and Ilias Mamalakis.
KETA director George Kalostos says the Aegean Cuisine initiative aims at highlighting Aegean gastronomy–the food but also the wine–of the islands as it is imprinted in scores of recipes and regional products like Naxos’s graviera cheese, the Syros loukoumi and halvadopitta, or local pasta like the pellet-shaped arando from Kimolos and the cylindrical balota from Anafi.
“The benefits for local businesses and the area are enormous as the Aegean Cuisine initiative creates unique gastronomy destinations–and we all know the global trend towards this–thus significantly bolstering the island’s primary and secondary production sectors,” says Kalostos. Restaurants and businesses inducted in the Aegean Cuisine program “will become the best ambassadors of the culinary traditions of their respective islands as well as the Aegean as a whole.”
Kalostos adds that while each island’s cuisine is unique because of local topographical and other conditions, there is a common thread that joins them. Vegetable or legume fritters are popular through the Cyclades and Dodecanese, for example, but their main ingredient varies according to each island’s agriculture: on some islands where greens grow wild in abundance, these are mixed with the batter to make hortokeftedes or marathokeftedes when a specific green is used; on other islands that have scant vegetation like Santorini, tomatoes are fried in batter for tomatokeftedes.
Another example is the different pulses in the traditional diets of each island. The chickpea is the basis of many dishes on Sifnos, while on nearby Santorini, its place is taken by the yellow split pea used for fava. The reason is simple: the scarcity of timber on Santorini led to crops and ingredients that cooked faster.
While such variations add culinary interest to Greek food and create unique gastronomy destinations by island or area, they also complicate any process that tries to establish specifications. But Aegean Cuisine has developed some broad, basic criteria aimed at overcoming this. For instance, to qualify for the program, restaurant menus must feature–to a substantial degree–dishes based on local recipes, use local products, and also offer a range of local wines on their list. It’s an important concession for seasonal businesses like tavernas as it encourages them to join the program and, hopefully, also gradually shift emphasis on their offerings from “international” dishes to local cuisine as consumers discover and seek it out.
“The point isn’t to limit the program to those restaurants or tavernas offering authentic local cuisine but also include establishments that adopt a modern approach to the Aegean’s culinary traditions and offer creative, contemporary version of Aegean cuisine that is obviously rooted in local recipes or inspired by local products,” says Kalostos. He adds that setting the use of local products as a criteria is a “win-win situation because tourists have the opportunity to sample tasty, high-quality products and businesses ‘gain’ satisfied customers. Equally importantly, when local products are being used, the money stays in the local economy, bolstering it and attracting young people–who in recent years have generally avoided anything that has to do with the soil–towards traditional occupations that would otherwise be lost.”
To ensure that only restaurants or producers who meet its criteria are included in the program, Aegean Cuisine “secret customers” are sent to conduct private checks of applicants. These trained checkers aren’t food critics; they act as potential customers or tourists seeking authentic local foods and flavors. After each visit, the checkers complete a detailed questionnaire that is then used to determine whether the applicant will be given the “Aegean Cuisine” seal of approval to display. Again, this isn’t an endorsement of flavor or service or packaging: it simply indicates that a taverna offers at least some authentic local dishes and uses local produce. This is an ongoing process as Kalostos and other representatives continue presenting the initiative throughout the islands.
The Aegean Cuisine project is supported by an online portal, www.aegeancuisine.gr. A completely redesigned version of the portal will launch in April, with expanded information about the food and wines of the Cyclades and Dodecanese. With a few clicks, users can read up on the cuisines of the Cyclades and the Dodecanese, learn about wine varietals, and find businesses that serve or sell local products, like gavafes, the bright yellow guavas grown on Leros, or read up on local specialties like Antiparos’s patido (rooster stuffed with bread, raisins, and kefalotyri cheese). The first Aegean Cuisine seals will be awarded to local businesses around the same time so tourists will have a visual guide to tavernas and businesses offering local products.
Kalostos says that before the Aegean Cuisine initiative, a concerted effort had never been made to encourage visitors, foreign or Greek, to sample the unique flavors of each island’s products that taste of “sun, salt, scant water, and meraki”–or loving care. “Anyone who did taste became a fan! I think it’s time to return to tradition and learn from it. It’s the only way we’ll give people who visit the islands that ‘something extra’ they want from their holidays: unrepeatable memories for all their senses.”

The Cretan Quality Agreement is a similar initiative. It was created to promote the “Cretan diet” and certify restaurants that offer traditional Cretan cuisine and–very importantly–use local products.
“We’ve created our own 'Quality Label of Cretan Cuisine' and set up a proper certification department according to the international standard EN 45011, in order to do the audits properly and professionally,” says Nowak. “The main specifications a restaurant has to follow in order to be awarded the 'Quality Label of Cretan Cuisine' are that, firstly, at least two thirds of their dishes have to be Cretan and designated accordingly–as this will educate consumers–secondly, exclusively use extra virgin or virgin olive oil in all cooking–including deep frying–and lastly, exclusively use the local products that are abundantly produced on the island.”
Nowak adds that specifications were adjusted to local realities based on extensive research to ensure that restaurateurs can meet them without sending their budgets skyrocketing. “For us it's all about creating a recognizable label that will be promoted by the Region of Crete and give restaurant owners the incentive to invest in the Cretan cuisine, local products, and higher quality services. Sometimes we forget that restaurants are businesses and they are created in order to make profit: the challenge for the Regional government of Crete is to make the Cretan gastronomy an asset worth investing in. We are the ones that have to support the shift in the local economy by making the Cretan Diet well-known and creating more demand for local cuisine so that investing in it will be a ‘no brainer’ for owners of local businesses. That's why creating a label for Cretan cuisine was so important; it gives certified restaurants the benefits of being promoted for free and linked with all the initiatives of the Region of Crete that concern making the Cretan Cuisine and products on of the islands main competitive advantages and promoting the island as an international culinary destination.”
Cretan cuisine is very flavorful. But an important selling point is research suggesting the island’s culinary traditions promote health and longevity.
The “traditional” Cretan diet is loosely defined as foods consumed through the early 1960s, before the spread of packaged and later processed foods. As in all regions, the basis of this diet was locally-grown food consumed with minimal processing. The structure of the traditional meal was also different, with “dessert”, for example being fresh fruit and sweets reserved for holidays and other special occasions.
As with the broadly-termed “Mediterranean diet”, olive oil is key to its healthful characteristics. But high content in monounsaturated fat and low content of saturated fat alone do not explain why traditional Cretan eating patterns are associated with good health. As several researchers have noted, the traditional Cretan diet has other important characteristics “since it is a diet when consumed in sufficient quantities, provides all the essential micronutrients (that is, vitamins and minerals) and is rich in omega-3 fatty acids, fiber, antioxidants and various phytochemicals, which have significant operations in various functions, impacting positively on the health of the body.”
To qualify for certification, a restaurant must offer a menu comprising at least two-thirds traditional Cretan dishes; the remaining third can be generic Greek or international dishes but must also use local ingredients and produce in their preparation. The main focus has been virgin olive oil–the only oil allowed, especially for deep-frying. Vegetables and fruits have to be local and preferably in season, and the same goes for cheeses and honey. Restaurants aren’t told what products to use, but what they use has to be local. Certified restaurants can only use fresh meat (not frozen) and lamb, goat, or rabbit–at least–have to be of Cretan origin. There is also a distinct specification for Cretan wines and restaurant owners are asked to have a minimum percentage of bottled local wines in their wine list–the percentage varies based on the size of the wine list –as part of the Regions support for the excellent job local winemakers have done taking Cretan wines to a new level.
“We have sixteen registered auditors that have been carefully chosen and trained that visit the restaurants as 'mystery customers' in the beginning, order, check menus and ask questions about the offered products. Afterwards they reveal their identity and proceed to take samples of olive oil from the kitchen and deep fryers, inspect the kitchens, and storage areas for hygiene and products used, also the receipts from all the supplies to check the origin of the products. The three olive oil samples taken are then analyzed at an authorized chemistry lab to check for the presence of other vegetable oils,” says Nowak. “Audits are really thorough and that is very crucial as it makes restaurant owners feel safe about investing in our Label cause they know their fame will be protected.”
To date, just ten restaurants have been certified with the special seal. The Region of Crete recently held a meeting with existing restaurant labels on Crete that have been either inactive or not totally successful and it was decided that all labels will now become part of the regional 'Quality Label of Cretan Cuisine'. That will automatically increase the number of certified restaurants by at least thirty more restaurants by the summer. Currently eleven more have applied for inclusion in the program which, like the Cyclades-Dodecanese initiative, is supported by the website www.cretan-nutrition.gr.
“So what we're working on here is more on setting up a movement about returning to the Cretan Diet and what is local, seasonal, clean, healthy, tasty, and ours! Promotion and certification are tools we use and also we aim at developing culinary tourism and making Crete a proper culinary destination, as we believe this is the only way forward–really connect the local food production with the tourism sector on a sustainable basis,” says Nowak. “If it's not based on mutual benefit–for producers, restaurateurs, and hoteliers–using local products and promoting the Cretan diet will remain a joke.”