Dalmatian Cuisine
“Dalmatia?” you ask. “Is that where the dog is from?”
The unparalleled beauty of Dalmatia inflames the heart and rouses the soul. This captivating coastal region of southwestern Croatia is unquestionably churning with spirit. Islands haunt the salted mists of the sapphire Adriatic. The heady perfume of lemons, rosemary and lavender dances on the warm breeze. Choirs of jackals serenade from rocky slopes while ship captains and fishermen tell tales over herb brandy on stone piers guarded by palms. Dalmatia is a scarcely believable place, a living Mediterranean fairytale etched into an epic landscape.
It should come as no surprise that such a place is home to a vibrant culinary idiom. Dalmatian cuisine is defined only in part by its healthy, organic ingredients, skillfully coaxed from stubborn land and pristine seas by a resourceful people. There are also millennia of tumultuous history influencing its flavors, written in part by the Illyrians, Greeks, Romans, Croats, Slavs, Venetians and Ottoman Turks. From obscure local specialties to far-famed regional favorites, that history lives in the sumptuous, elegantly simple Mediterranean cooking of Dalmatia’s sun-drenched mountains and shores.
When you combine a diverse fish population from pristine waters, free range meat and poultry, organic produce, artisan cheeses, wild herbs, olive oil and strong, fruity wine, the result is the beautiful Mediterranean cuisine of Dalmatia.
