Fourth of July? Salmon & peas!

And a Garlic Scape Veloûté to begin with

the mediterranean diet pyramid, seen from afar

Every time some leading world expert opens his or her mouth (or their computer) about the Mediterranean Diet, some other self-designated expert counter-attacks. Most recently it was in the New York Times where a January article about the Med diet listed, among many other worthy foods, salmon and avocados. Immediately the Med Diet Police leapt to the attack: There are no salmon in the Mediterranean, they roared, and on top of that my grandmother from Calabria never knew an avocado in her life and certainly didn’t make avocado toast for breakfast.

what the Med Diet is really all about

What’s missing from this virtuous attitude is what the Mediterranean Diet is really all about. First of all, it is not about specific ingredients, bad foods, good foods, parve foods. I’ve argued till I’m blue in the face that it’s not even a diet at all, not in the sense that most people think of a diet nowadays. Think of it instead as a way of eating—a holistic way of eating where not only is the kind of food on the table important, but so is the way it’s consumed—where, when, with whom, and how often, preferably around a comfortable table with family and friends.

So what if there are no salmon in the Mediterranean? There are no cod either, and yet salt cod was an important protein source, right around the Mediterranean by very long-standing tradition. And if avocados were not on your granny’s table, tomatoes too were absent a couple of centuries ago. Food writer Aglaia Kremezi once spoke of the introduction of tomatoes in her own grandmother’s kitchen in Greece. Should we ban tomatoes? I don’t think so.

The point I’m making, just to be clear, is that diet is constantly changing, evolving, blending, and especially in this century as more and more once exotic foods become commonplace in far-flung corners of the world. Israel is producing great quantities of avocados and shipping them out to their fellow Mediterranean markets; as for salmon, it is ubiquitous in Mediterranean supermarkets, even if it’s raised in Scotland or Norway. The world market continues to have a huge impact, not always for the better, on how and what people eat, even in the Mediterranean’s poorer countries.

As for the Mediterranean diet, it is really about categories of foods rather than individual ingredients. Yes, you should be eating foods rich in Omega-3 fatty acids—salmon, tuna, and sardines are the most notable. And yes, you should be eating plenty of whole grains, vegetables, and fruits, and if that includes a toasted slice of whole-grain bread with a mash of avocado dressed with olive oil and a spritz of lemon on top—well, you will not find that on offer, probably, in an Athenian kafeneio, nor in a kahvehane in İstiklal Caddesi. But if you want to have avocado toast, for breakfast, lunch, or an afternoon snack in your own kitchen, you’ll be fully within the parameters of the Mediterranean diet by doing so.

That very long introduction leads me to this weekend’s menu, which is gearing up for Fourth of July with the old New England favorite, salmon and peas—salmon because once upon a time they ran up our rivers in this early summer season and peas because they should be ripe and ready to harvest by early July, making a perfect, seasonal, local combination.