Bitter Is Better: Wild Greens Used in the Blue Zone of Ikaria, Greece

Abstract

The current study reports an ethnobotanical field investigation of traditionally gathered and consumed wild greens (Chorta) in one of the five so-called Blue Zones in the world: Ikaria Isle, Greece. Through 31 semi-structured interviews, a total of 56 wild green plants were documented along with their culinary uses, linguistic labels, and locally perceived tastes. Most of the gathered greens were described as bitter and associated with members of Asteraceae and Brassicaceae botanical families (31%), while among the top-quoted wild greens, species belonging to these two plant families accounted for 50% of the wild vegetables, which were consumed mostly cooked. Cross-cultural comparison with foraging in other areas of the central-eastern Mediterranean and the Near East demonstrated a remarkable overlapping of Ikarian greens with Cretan and Sicilian, as well as in the prevalence of bitter-tasting botanical genera. Important differences with other wild greens-related food heritage were found, most notably with the Armenian and Kurdish ones, which do not commonly feature many bitter greens. The proven role of extra-oral bitter taste receptors in the modulation of gastric emptying, glucose absorption and crosstalk with microbiota opens new ways of looking at these differences, in particular with regard to possible health implications. The present study is also an important attempt to preserve and document the bio-cultural gastronomic heritage of Chorta as a quintessential part of the Mediterranean diet. The study recommends that nutritionists, food scientists, and historians, as well as policymakers and practitioners, pay the required attention to traditional rural dietary systems as models of sustainable health.

Wild Edible Plants Used in Dalmatian Zagora (Croatia)

“…The relatively large list of wild vegetables and the frequent use of several of them place the local population high on the herbophilia spectrum [ 31 ], typically for the Mediterranean part of Europe, where gathering wild vegetables is one of the important though overlooked parts of the Mediterranean diet [ 2 , 3 , 13 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 ].…”

“…The Mediterranean diet is known worldwide to have many health benefits, and the consumption of wild Mediterranean foods has certainly played a part in this. The frequent collection of wild foods, especially wild green vegetables, can be seen as an important, but often overlooked, part of the Mediterranean diet [ 2 , 3 ]. There are numerous studies showing that the Mediterranean diet, rich in alpha-linolenic acid, is responsible for the prevention and suppression of cardiovascular disease [ 4 , 5 ].…”

Are we romanticizing traditional knowledge? A plea for more experimental studies in ethnobiology

“…Also, taste and flavour properties of botanical drugs are often reported to be important selection cues in traditional medicine [ 14 , 59 – 62 ]. However, chemosensory qualities in ethnobiological studies are rarely experimentally assessed with the help of double-blind tasting panels and by challenging research participants with samples.…”

“…The results, corrected for shared ancestry of botanical species, suggest that chemosensory perception and perceived physiologic effects guided ancient therapeutic knowledge linking it to modern pharmacology albeit aetiologies have completely changed [ 14 ]. Experimental evidence also suggests that it is not simply bitter which is the ‘better’ as suggested [ 62 ] but that those bitter tasting edible herbs are concomitantly salty or umami in taste which makes them more palatable and acceptable for food [ 63 ].…”

Dark local knowledge: the yet-to-be scientifically discovered and locally acknowledged aspects of local knowledge systems

“…Some aspects of the explicit form of foraging practices (like plant names and the names of the local dishes) are intensively studied and addressed in the majority of wild food plant-related research. Recently, the ethno-organoleptic properties of wild plants have also been covered [ 28 ]. At the same time, ethnoecological terminology (like names of habitats or types of landscape) is very rarely addressed [ 23 ].…”