Mediterranean diet vocabulary
Spanish cuisine is an excellent example of the Mediterranean diet. With all of these fresh, natural and healthy ingredients we can make a wide variety of dishes. But what are these ingredients? This vocabulary will give you some hints...
- Legumes: The fruit from plants from the Fabaceae family of plants. To understand more easily, here are some legumes you may already know about like green beans, peas and garbanzos. How many stews have you seen in Spain with these ingredients!
- Cereals: In Spain, the most common cereals are wheat, rice, oats and barley. When you eat a good paella, bread with tomato spread or a refreshing caña you'll know that the how important they are to our cuisine.
- Vegetables: Generally speaking, these are plants that edible and are grown in gardens. Eggplant, zucchini, carrots, squashes
- Fruits: Edible fruits from cultivated plants that tend to be sweet tasting or slightly acidic. Apples, pears, cherries, peaches, bananas...
- Olive oil: The liquid that is obtained from the pressing of olives. This is an obligatory product in every Spanish kitchen.
- Olives: From the olive we get olive oil but olives are also very popular as an appetizer or as an addition to some dishes.
- Tomato: This is something very present in the Spanish kitchen. This red fruit presents us with a question: Is it a fruit or a vegetable? The answer is the former but most stores consider it a vegetable so as not to confuse customers.
With these insights into what comprises Spanish cuisine, we think that you'll understand a little bit more about what makes up our diet. You can even go shopping now and try to eat like we do. Let's try the Mediterranean diet!