🌍 Balkans

The Balkans, or the Balkan Peninsula, is a mountainous region in southeastern Europe between the Adriatic, Ionian, Aegean and Black Seas. Bulgarians, Greeks, Serbs, Croats, Albanians and others live side by side here, and each of their cuisines has its dairy products — and on the warm coast, olives and wine as well.

The mountains have a long herding tradition: in summer, sheep and goats are driven up to mountain pastures, and in winter down to the valleys. UNESCO has included the seasonal livestock drives of Greece, Albania and Croatia in the intangible heritage element “Transhumance”. The region is famous for its fermented milk products: in 1905 the Bulgarian student Stamen Grigorov described a bacterium from kiselo mlyako that was later named Lactobacillus bulgaricus. Well-known brined cheeses include sirene, bryndza and feta; among hard cheeses, kashkaval.

The olive grows in the south and along the Adriatic. Greece produces about 300,000 tonnes of olive oil a year and, according to a 2012 International Olive Council review, ranked third in the world; up to 70% of its oil is extra virgin. The Peloponnese, Crete and the Ionian Islands produce almost 80% of Greek oil. In Croatia, olive oil was valued as far back as Roman times, and most of it comes from the local cultivar Oblica; in Montenegro, from Crnica.

Grapes and olives have been grown here since antiquity. The Stari Grad Plain on the Croatian island of Hvar was laid out by Greek colonists from the island of Paros in the 4th century BC, and ever since it has been used above all for grapes and olives; UNESCO protects it as a cultural landscape.

Why it matters to you. The Balkans show how milk, olives and wine coexist in one region: sheep's cheeses and kiselo mlyako in the mountains, olive oil and wine on the coast. When buying Greek olive oil, check the grade on the label.