Gastronomy
The Cretan cuisine, no longer needs praise nowadays. It is worldwide renowned and confirms the effectiveness both on human health and its nutritional value. But it is obvious that, the Cretan cuisine in order to have the desired results, it should be based on the quality values of the raw materials, from which meals are prepared.
Therefore, the purity of the products, the methodology and practice of their cultivation, the art of using them to prepare food and how the material resources are cooked, are essential elements to complete the gastronomic value of the Cretan Diet.
None of the above is absent from the restaurants, taverns and “ouzeri” nor any "hangout" for eating or snacking in the surrounding area, of the Municipality of Heraklion.
These 'companies' - usually family units, in which the members of the family themselves, dine - focus on cooking traditionally, using local fresh ingredients, herbs and plants, produced or collected, in most cases, from out in the wild, by themselves. Local fruits and sweets also complete a culinary delight.
A good food, needs also a good company to achieve completeness in pleasure and mental satisfaction. And this is a fact, well known to the residents and the local food business owners. That's why they want for each table of visitors to have “their own glass of wine”, meaning their homemade wine, setting just the right mood in which a good meal ends.
Famous and dear – perhaps most dear – our Cretan drink. Produced from the distillation of Marc (strafyla) in special craft workshops (rakokazana). It has a strong smell, pleasant taste and high alcohol, consumed at every opportunity.
When, says the legend, was looking God Saturn the newborn Zeus to swallow him, his mother, Rhea hid him in Ideon Andron and put the Kuretes to cover the crying, beating bronze cymbals on their shields. But his grandmother, Gaia not content therein. Because he feared failure and the cries of little Zeus heard louder than the cymbals, placed at the entrance of the cave (Ideon Andron) a bustling Beehive and the loud hum of the cover the crying of small God, and the honey the harbored (the nymph Melia of the provided).
Stafylos and the Onop(o)ion were the two boys that begat the Ariadne when found alone and abandoned on Naxos by Theseus God Dionysus and his wife made according to legend.
In a place covered by 13.5 million olive trees, from which at least 1000 (so marked and registered at present) have been monumental (i.e. living more than 2,000 years) might be redundant to mention in olive oil.
The Regional Section of the municipality of Heraklion apart from the excellent grapes led wineries for wine production of the renowned, has rich production and table grapes. Thousands of tons of fresh grapes are produced on modern vineyards (linear, overlapping scales, etc.) and driven to the Greek and European markets.
The dried grapes (raisins) in previous decades were the dominant agricultural product not only in regional unity of the municipality and the whole of the Prefecture of Heraklion.
Livestock, particularly sheep and goat farming is a highly developed industry in the Regional section of Heraklion. The herd (small or large) for the Cretan countryside is one of the key components of rural life.
