DIANE KOCHILAS: In this episode, we turn sustainability from a buzzword into a way of life, rooted in the wisdom of the Mediterranean diet.

We'll explore why the Mediterranean diet is one of the world's most sustainable food systems.

I'll talk with Dr.

Antonia Trichopoulou, a renowned physician, nutrition scientist, and member of the Academy of Athens about her latest research on sustainability and the Mediterranean diet.

And of course, I'll cook up a sustainable feast of broccoli cauliflower salad with a lemony feta vinaigrette.

Mmmm.

Lentil sweet potato soup with spinach.

It's healthy, delicious, and it's gorgeous.

And a light, sustainable seafood stew.

This is the Mediterranean to me.

Each dish celebrating the balance between nutrition and respect for the planet.

Join me on My Greek Table as we delve into the healthiest way to cook, eat, and live.

♪♪ ANNOUNCER: My Greek Table with Diane Kochilas is made possible in part by... The Fillo Factory.

Grecian Delight Kronos, A family committed to better eating.

The National Hellenic Society.

And by the following... DIANE: Sustainability is a legacy of the traditional Greek and Mediterranean diets.

For centuries, the Mediterranean way of eating has followed the rhythms of the seasons, honoring the land while nourishing those who live from it, to plant and enjoy the fruits of the garden, to go out into nature to pick herbs and wild foods, to wait for things in their season, and to eat both mindfully and wholesomely, relying more on plant-based nourishment than anything else, are a few of the universal lessons the island of Ikaria has taught me.

The foundations of the Mediterranean diet: olive oil, grains, legumes, and vegetables, form an ethical path with nature.

Together we'll discover how this age-old diet remains a guide for the modern world, helping us understand that sustainability isn't about sacrifice, but about symbiosis; living and eating in ways that allow both the planet and its people to thrive.

I'm here with Dr.

Antonia Trichopoulou.

DR.

ANTONIA TRICHOPOULOU: Hi.

DIANE: An old friend.

[Laughs] DR.

TRICHOPOULOU: Sure.

DIANE: What is the Mediterranean diet?

How would you describe it?

DR.

TRICHOPOULOU: This reflects the diet which was followed by the people living in the Mediterranean region, where the olive trees grows and before the sixties.

After the sixties, a lot of socioeconomic changes... DIANE: Mm hmm.

DR.

TRICHOPOULOU: Happened all over the world.

And as a result of that, many changes happened.

DIANE: In the diet too.

DR.

TRICHOPOULOU: In the diet too.

In the production of food, in the way food is consumed.

In addition to that, the Mediterranean diet is slowly and steadily abandoned even by the Mediterranean people.

Today, Mediterranean diet exists.

We know its principle.

It's up to you to continue, implementing it.

DIANE: I'm making one of my favorite salads.

This is a salad with cruciferous vegetables, cauliflower and broccoli.

[Bright guitar music] Cauliflower and broccoli are two of the healthiest vegetables we can add to our diet.

Lots of fiber, lots of nutrients and also two vegetables that we can find pretty much anywhere and cook them up simply like I'm doing in this recipe.

We basically want to get our cauliflower into florets.

Ditto on the broccoli, we want that in florets too.

Ok.

I'm going to use as much of the stem as I can.

This is also going to be steamed.

I'm also going to add the leaves to this.

I am a real believer in nose-to-tail vegetable cooking, so I try to use as much of the plant as possible and that's also keeping in line with practices of sustainability.

When you cook in the vein of the Mediterranean diet, this is kind of second nature.

This is the way people used to cook.

I have a steamer basket in here.

I'm going to add the broccoli and the cauliflower florets to this.

And get them steamed, until they're nice and tender.

Steaming is also a great way, uh to cook foods that you retain nutrients.

I'll get the leaves in here and the stems in here as well.

I'm just going to cover that.

[Lid clanking] And let it steam until it's nice and tender.

And in the meantime, get my dressing ready.

I want to get my dill chopped.

This is probably the ultimate Greek herb.

We use it in all sorts of dishes that are lemony.

You can switch this out if you want.

Almost any fresh herb will work nicely in here.

But dill and lemon are two kind of identifiable and definitive defining flavors in Greek cooking.

And I just want to get a little bit of lemon juice in here.

I like to use fresh lemon juice.

[Slicing] The low-tech way of squeezing a lemon.

The mustard goes in here next.

It's a basic... [Scraping of spoon in bowl] Vinaigrette.

A little bit of salt.

A touch of pepper.

Okay, you always want to add acid before fat.

When you make a vinaigrette, start whisking, you know, Emulsion 101.

[Whisking and tapping on bowl] That's exactly what we're looking for.

That looks perfect.

Let me check the vegetables, and I can see that they're done.

First by the color, but I know that these are going to be exactly the texture I want.

Tender, but also firm.

You want them a little bit al dente.

You don't want this to turn to mush, so let me just get these out of here.

The stems are also nice and tender.

I can feel that.

I think we are good here.

Now I just want to let this cool for a few minutes until I can handle it.

And I'm going to chop it.

This is a chopped salad with delicious broccoli and cauliflower.

And again, a tangy lemony vinaigrette with a nice handful of real Greek feta.

I'm ready to chop the salad.

The cauliflower and broccoli are warm.

Just right to handle.

And we want to just chop that up.

[Chopping] Ok.

[More chopping] Let me get the rest of this out here.

If you have some left over, it also makes a great omelet filling.

[Chopping] Ok,I think we're good here.

I'm finishing up the vinaigrette.

I just want to add this nice chopped dill to it.

Give it a whirl.

This is going right into the salad.

[Tapping] [Whisk scraping] A little bit of Greek feta, very creamy and very tangy, and adds great flavor to almost anything you mix it into.

I just want to get this mixed.

In my kitchen, simplicity rules the day.

I think this is a great example of a very, very simple salad.

It's pretty, and you know it's going to taste good.

Ok, it's time for our taste test.

My cooked cruciferous Greek salad here with feta cheese.

Broccoli, cauliflower, dill, lemon, all good things.

And very dainty, especially in this pretty pink dish.

All right, let's taste it.

Let's get a nice taste of the lemony broccoli cauliflower salad.

Mmm.

It's pretty amazing that most accessible ingredients, I mean, you find broccoli and cauliflower pretty much everywhere.

You can make a really delicious salad.

It's that lemon and the mustard together, Greek olive oil that makes the dressing beautiful, the dill adds a really nice freshness to it, a kind of grassiness, and that Greek feta just adds the right amount of tang.

This salad is a winner, I would say 365 days a year.

DIANE: Can it be sustainable if you live in, Nebraska or Wisconsin?

DR.

TRICHOPOULOU: Why not?

DIANE: or New York or- DR.

TRICHOPOULOU: Yes, because you know, the idea is produce locally, consume locally.

And I have seen the United States also, farmers markets.

DIANE: The farmers markets.

DR.

TRICHOPOULOU: And then you will see local producers bringing their products, and you can buy local products.

DIANE: One of my favorite foods are the greens.

The horta.

DR.

TRICHOPOULOU: [chuckles] The horta.

Sometimes when I am in the United States, I see the greens.

I say, Oh, there is nobody here to pick them up and to boil them.

DIANE: Is there a connection between health, greens consumption and longevity?

DR.

TRICHOPOULOU: We know that plant-based data, they are healthy, and they are associated with, uh, reduced mortality.

But, now talking about mortality and the role of of diet, I want to stress that the pattern is stronger association than the individual foods.

That means the combination of the foods.

DIANE: Mm-hmm.

DR.

TRICHOPOULOU: And of course, in this pattern is predominant, the vegetables and the legumes and the wild greens.

DIANE: And olive oil.

DR.

TRICHOPOULOU: Well.

[Diane Laughs] This is the main component.

DIANE: Lentils are definitely one of my favorite ingredients and something I cook a lot of at home, mostly because they're very easy and they take very little time to cook up into something very nutritious.

And today I am making a nice lentil soup with some unique additions.

Sweet potatoes, spinach, a little bit of sage, some bay leaf.

And I'm using leeks instead of onions.

I'm just getting the tomatoes ready.

I'm using whole cherry tomatoes.

I'm just chopping them in half.

A little bit of extra virgin Greek olive oil.

I'm getting the leeks in here.

[Sizzling] So I want to get these uh nice and soft.

The garlic goes in next.

Time to add the lentils.

The next thing that goes in here are the fresh cherry tomatoes or teardrop tomatoes.

You can also use canned tomatoes in this, no problem.

I'm going to get the sweet potatoes in here next.

[Bright, upbeat guitar music] That's my bay leaf.

Sage.

One of the reasons that we add bay leaf to lentils is that the bay leaf actually makes the lentils more palatable.

The vegetable stock goes in next, you can also use just plain water in this.

[Sizzling as water is poured] The lentils will absorb all this liquid.

So, you know you want to just keep an eye on it.

I'm going to add a little bit of salt to this.

And just a little bit of black pepper.

[Tapping of spoon] Ok, this has come to a nice simmer.

I'm just going to cover that, and let it cook for about 20-25 minutes.

The lentils will be tender, the sweet potatoes will be tender.

Then we're going to add the spinach and the rest of our seasonings.

Looks like this is pretty much ready for the spinach.

I just want to fish out the bay leaf.

Time to add our spinach.

And I like to use fresh spinach in this.

It's definitely more flavorful and has better texture than frozen spinach.

But again, if it's a choice between adding spinach and not adding it, definitely use frozen.

This is a nice, hearty soup.

This also freezes really well.

I just want the spinach to wilt.

I don't want it to overcook.

The next thing in are my two final seasonings.

A little bit of sweetness in a very nutritionally dense grape molasses called petimezi.

Very rich in iron, too.

And balsamic vinegar for a little bit of acidity.

And this is pretty much done.

Ready to taste it.

[Tapping of spoon] Nothing like a healthy bowl of lentil soup.

I'm going to let this cool for a few minutes and I'm going to go grab some feta from my fridge because I love it with my lentil soup.

[Opening of fridge] Ok.

Just a little bit of Greek feta, one of my favorite additions, and accompaniments to lentil soup.

Time to taste.

I'm going to get a little bit of everything on here.

Mmm.

It is so comforting.

It's got a lot of complex flavors, but they're all very simple and very harmonious together.

I got a delicious mouthful of sweetness from the sweet potatoes, that beautiful earthiness from the lentils.

The spinach just exude healthfulness.

There's almost a mineraly quality to them.

The feta on top adds a little bit of nice acidity.

To me this dish is a perfect example of the Mediterranean diet transportable anywhere in the world because you can find all these ingredients almost anywhere in the world.

It's healthy, it's delicious, and it's gorgeous.

I was very fascinated by the research that you've been doing on the sustainability and the Mediterranean diet.

DR.

TRICHOPOULOU: Keep in mind that uh in uh, 2010 UNESCO recognized the Mediterranean diet as an intangible cultural heritage DIANE: Mm-hmm.

DR.

TRICHOPOULOU: Because of its tradition.

Because it express the way of preparing the food, of cultivating the fields.

It's friendly to the environment.

It is sustainable.

Although it is a diet, it does not say no to anything.

It's a diet of how much and how often.

DIANE: Yes, [speaking Greek] Pan metron ariston.

DR.

TRICHOPOULOU: Pan metron ariston.

DIANE: Everything in good measure.

DR.

TRICHOPOULOU: Yes, the meat.

How often?

Once a week.

Because it is a plant-based diet, we have our protein from fish.

Once a week.

It's part of our diet.

But it's not for every day.

That makes the difference.

[Speaking Greek] DIANE: In this recipe I'm making a sustainable seafood stew.

I've got mussels, squid and cod.

[Upbeat Rustic Music] I'm going to get started just with the first step, which is to chop the leek.

This is going into the base of the stew.

You want to be sure that all the sand or dirt is gone.

This is very clean as you can see.

So I just want to get this cut.

Just getting the leek chopped up here.

[Soft chopping] A little bit of extra virgin Greek olive oil going into my pot first.

Getting the leeks in.

Let's get the onion in next.

[Faint sizzling] And the other favorite vegetable of mine that goes in here is fennel bulb.

I'm going to keep the fronds for later.

Get that sauteed.

Let's get the garlic prepped next.

I just want to smash it a little bit.

[Garlic softly popping] We don't shy away from garlic in Greece.

Let's get the potato prepped next.

Just want to get this, cut into chunks.

[Chopping] Almost ready for the pot.

Ok, I think we can get our potatoes in here.

[Sizzling] A little salt and pepper.

I'm gonna go grab some basil, my Mediterranean countertop garden here.

I love to use herbs in my cooking.

All sorts of herbs are the signature of Mediterranean diet and the basil smells really good.

Just getting the basil chopped.

[Soft chopping] This is looking good.

Starting to get a tiny bit of color on here.

Ok, it's time to get the tomatoes in here.

And now it's time to get the ouzo... A little white wine.

You can smell uh the alcohol before it evaporates.

It's a bit of a sharp scent.

Time to add the stock.

Let me get a piece of orange zest.

Cut off a piece with a sharp knife.

That's going right in.

I've got my paprika in here.

Greek saffron, which we call krokos kozanis.

Add that beautiful saffron aroma.

And some hot pepper flakes.

I probably won't add all of these.

I like it spicy, but not everybody does.

And some bay leaves.

Let me get that stirred around.

I'm gonna lower the heat on this.

Keep it at a slow simmer and cover it until the potatoes are almost cooked because the potatoes take the longest to cook.

The mussels, the cod, and the squid will just take a few minutes.

Ok, I think this smells just about ready.

And I'm right.

So when you make a seafood stew, you wanna be aware of what takes the longest to cook.

So in this case, the cod takes a little bit longer than everything else here.

The squid and the mussels are gonna cook up in around the same time.

I just wanna salt the cod lightly.

This is also gonna absorb the delicious flavors in the stew.

I'm just nestling these pieces in the pot.

These will also, let off their own liquid.

So this is gonna be really tasty.

The squid goes in next.

The tentacles are a little bit tougher than the bodies of the squid, so they take a couple of, little tiny bit longer to cook.

I'm just gonna get the squid bodies in here.

And stir this around a little bit.

This is on pretty low heat right now.

The next thing in here are the mussels.

When you're cooking with fresh mussels, you want to make sure that its closed.

If the mussels open, you generally want to discard it.

So the mussels go in next.

They open obviously when they cook.

The ones that have not opened are not ones you want to eat.

[Clattering of mussels] Wow, the whole sea is in this pot.

I'm gonna cover this.

Let it cook for a few minutes.

It's not gonna take very long.

I'll get my herbs in here right at the end, and then we'll enjoy it together.

Ooh, this looks amazing.

I'm going to get the fresh fennel fronds in here.

Basil.

The parsley.

And just give this a very, very light stir.

See the mussels have opened up.

We know they're ready.

I wish you were in my kitchen next to me to get a whiff of this beautiful Mediterranean sea perfume.

This is Greece.

Greece on a plate.

I want to make sure I get a little bit of everything here.

Some nice mussels.

Ooh, this looks so good.

I can't wait to taste this.

I'm going right for my favorite first, which are the squid tentacles.

Mmmm.

They have that crunch, which is what I love about them, but they're also really tender.

Let me go for the cod, which is also really tender.

Mmm.

The cod has absorbed all the flavors of this stew.

Now I'm going to try the mussel next.

Mmm.

Melt in your mouth delicious.

This bowl of sustainable seafood stew right here has the entire Greek earth and Greek sea in one place.

The herbs, the hot pepper flakes, the saffron or krokos kozanis have been infused in every single bite.

To me, this is a sustainable seafood stew you want to dive right into and feel great about.

DIANE: For recipe links and information about My Greek Table , visit my website, DianeKochilas.com.

ANNOUNCER: Diane's cookbooks, "The Ikaria Way" and "Athens: Food, Stories, Love" are available to purchase online at DianeKochilas.com or call the phone number on the screen.

My Greek Table with Diane Kochilas is made possible in part by... The Fillo Factory.

Grecian Delight Kronos, A family committed to better eating.

The National Hellenic Society.

And by the following... PRODUCER: Ready, Diane?

DIANE: I'm ready Matt.

CREW MEMBER: Rolling, quiet please.

DIANE: I'm gonna get everything, I'm gonna get- [rolls tongue] you know, we, [rolls tongue again].

The lentils are tender- [rolls tongue] Shine some energy on me.

Hello?

We're just gonna cover that.

[Lid clanks] [Diane chuckles] This doesn't want to be covered.

DIANE: Ready?

PRODUCER: Ready.

DIANE: Here?

CREW MEMBER: That's good, yes.

PRODUCER: Action.

DIANE: Needs salt, no just kidding, I'm sorry.

I think this is the best food, season five.