https://www.youtube.com/embed/au8eyrI9Ta8
( intro music ) The Mediterranean
diet is the oldest diet that is still
practiced today. You don't see people
going around saying, "hey, you need to eat like the
Inuits, it's really good". ( audience laughter ) You have people...
because it's something you can still
practice nowadays it's very ancient. So, I went to Crete and I did not go
to one specific area. I went all around Crete. But I ended up spending quite
a lot of time in Central Crete where the word
"Kriti" is written. There's about 600,000
people living in Crete. This is breakfast,
the first day. And people adapt
to anything. All these areas I visited traditionally if they
eat only traditional food they are all fit as hell. I was lucky, I was
there exactly a year ago. And it was time of "Horta". Horta means herbs,
mean the wild herbs. And so I see this old woman
on the second or third day walking around, you know. And I follow her and she's
got this super sharp knife - and I'm like, "whoa, easy".
- ( audience laughter ) And what is she doing? She just laid down under
the olive tree and she started to
gather all this various wild chicory,
wild fennels All is...
Just goodness.
It's just, it was a really
beautiful scene. And so I followed her, you know
she didn't have enough space... into her apron, so she started
to take off her stuff and rolled all the
wild herbs in it, it was a very
beautiful moment. Vangelio her name is,
80-something year old woman. And then she goes back
and her daughters are there and they start to go
through all the hortas. You know clean them, separate
the different kinds. Any average Cretan
woman would give you about 20-25 names
of wild herbs and go in the field
and find them. And be able to
know that this is still part of
their knowledge. I was really blown
away by this.
Then they mix
it with eggs they make this Dolma with
stuffed grape leaves. And then they pulled
out this dish, geranium leaves
fried in olive oil. Even the French fries are
always fried in olive oil there is no other
oil than olive. This is tuna
plant, I was told. It's beetroot, it
tastes like earth, beautiful, with oranges
they mix that. Driving around Crete
we passed vineyards. Wine comes around
4,000-5,000 years ago from that part of the world.
It has olive groves. Olive oil is like, you know, the quintessential
stuff you think of when you think of
Mediterranean diet. And people in April are
trimming the olive trees to boost productivity
when it comes, you know, around
September-October when they
harvest olives. And we pass this man who
is, you know, trimming and you can see between the
olive trees they till the soil and they are going
to grow fava beans. Fava beans has a lot of
nitrogen, nitrogen fixer and it will help, you
know, the soil to be... So it's permaculture
but to, you know, very old ways
of permaculture.
They harvest parsley,
which is a very ancient plant from that part of
the world too. They practice polyculture there's not going to
be massive monoculture it's always mixed around there. It helps because you don't
need to use much fertilizer when you do that. And I meet a lot of
people that are self-sufficient like this guy, Nikolas who was living off his
vegetable garden more or less. We stop in Café
Neon, they are the coffee places,
coffee shops. There's this Orthodox
priest and, you know, he's just having, you
know, his breakfast. These are peanuts. They roll a lot of
cigarettes, this crisis they don't buy cigarettes,
they roll all their cigarettes. Oranges, a little
glass of grappa. Ten o'clock in the
morning, "It's okay, don't worry about it". ( audience laughter ) They live happy,
these people are... I mean, in Crete
what I experience was a very
happy bunch.
And, we drive around,
there is this guy you know, in the field there
is a fridge, you know, I stop, I get out, you know, I get
fed by very healthy looking man. ( audience laughter ) It was cool, I'm
always game for that. I love it. - I love to be fed anything.
- ( audience laughter ) And we ended up
in Central Crete, in this village
called Meronas. And you head out
to the church. And there's this grandma,
"yeah, what do you want?" I say, "hey... you know, show me the way to
the stomach, to the food." I need to see stuff
you know, "food, food, food." She said, "okay,
go over there." ( speaking in Greek ) Matthieu: Ah, these guys. ( speaking in Greek ) All are like,
"he's taking a picture." "No, I think he's
doing a video." "No, I don't
know, man." ( audience laughter ) You know,
this is Saturday afternoon at the Moschonas,
in this little village.
And they just eat, man. There is wine
everywhere and drinking. They're coming back from the
field, people are going There is so much noise. Could be in Italy! You know, in my mind I was like "Wow, my God, the
noise level in here!" And, so they are
having chicken from the farm. They are having lots of snails,
all the time, all year round. They have wild asparagus,
they have fava beans, sardines. You know, wine,
wine, wine! And they eat a lot of snail
there, all the time. And when you
think about it when you think about
the evolution of food seashells, snails, you don't
need much hunting skills. You don't even need
bow and arrow. You just walk there
and eat them. So, when you think of some of
the oldest food we have... we must have been eating I am thinking it's there. It's full of Omega-3,
there's no fat in it. It's super good for you. So, very joyous atmosphere,
very nice and the wine spills over and I'm like, "ah, great, you
know, Crete, I love you!" ( audience laughter )
