Wild vegetables do not lie: Comparative gastronomic ethnobotany and ethnolinguistics on the greek traces of the mediterranean diet of southeastern Italy

Abstract

Bio-cultural and historical aspects of the “wild plant” portion of the Mediterranean Diet are still very much understudied despite the large number of bio-medical studies on the topic. Th e current gastronomic ethnobotanical and ethnolinguistic fi eld study focused on the wild leafy vegetables used among Greek populations in SE Italy and NE Greece. A total of 52 folk taxa, corresponding to 58 wild botanical species, were recorded. Th e frequency of consumption of these wild ingredients was higher in NE Greece than in SE Italy, although approximately one-third of the recorded wild taxa overlapped in the two study sites. Most of these common species were designated by cognates, having in most cases a clear Greek origin, while one-third of the recorded wild vegetables in SE Italy were also used by another Greek diaspora living in SW Italy. Th e majority of the original Greek wild vegetables are synanthropic weeds. It is likely that the culinary uses of these species originated in the Near East during the post-Neolithic period before they migrated west to Italy and the Mediterranean Basin via Greece and Greek diasporas.