REVOLUTION H
The Mediterranean Food
ard to believe it now, but there was a time when the only place you could buy extra virgin
olive oil was in the pharmacy and the only olives available were the insipid green or dyed black olives that came in a tin. Fast forward a decade or two and the staples of the Mediterranean diet have found their way to become staples here too. The UK had a “Mediterranean food revolution”, fuelled initially by the likes of Elizabeth David, who brought the �lavours of the Med to post war Britain. As the Belazu Ingredient Company, we played a part when (in the early 90’s) the dining scene in Britain really embraced Mediterranean cuisine, inspiring the top restaurants of London with our
specialist ingredients. George Bennell, our founder and
trained chef, spent a lot of time in Provence where his mother lived, and
THE EVOLUTION OF MEDITERRANEAN FOOD HAS BEEN RAPID, WE SPEAK TO BELAZU WHO EXPAND ON THIS STORY .
noticed how her visitors raved about the local olives compared to those back home. Heaving market stalls with bowls full of glistening aromatic olives, bright red peppers and vibrant pesto seem just as at home in the markets of London today as they do in Provence, but it wasn’t until we began bringing the fresh, aromatised olives of Provence over that this became a regular sight. There are hundreds of different
varieties of olives from all over the world and each region has their own method of curing that has a particular effect on �lavour. There are �ive main methods; Sevillano
Gordal, Castelvetrano for Nocellara, Picholine for Petit Lucques, Simple Curing for natural blacks and Natural Fermentation for olives like
for green olives like Manzanilla and
purple Kalamata. In Spain, the largest producer of
olives in the world, the most common cure is Sevillano. The olives are �irst washed and sorted, then de-bittered and placed in salt water brine to ferment. After a month they are put into a fresh brine and stored, the whole curing process looked after by specialists known as “Maestros”, who pass their knowledge down through the generations. The Italians have always preserved
excess produce such as tomatoes, artichokes and peppers kept sott’ olio (under oil). So following the success of our olives we started bringing antipasti into the UK like sun dried tomatoes, which were incredibly popular in the early 90’s thanks in part to Delia Smith making them a household name, then came anchovies, followed by two tone capers from Morocco. But this is a fast moving industry,
palates develop over time and it’s become more important than ever to innovate. Since we started in 1991 we’ve worked tirelessly to bring the best ingredients together, originating and creating our own unique olive mixes, pastes, antipasti and snacks. Antipasti, like olives and tomatoes, are a quintessential part of the Mediterranean diet and a vital component of the current sharing dining trend that shows no sign of waning. ●
28 The Delicatessen Magazine
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