King Si - The Hairy Bikers Mediterranean Adventure

Weve spent the last few months travelling through the Mediterranean area, eating the most amazing food, seeing incredible places and meeting lovely people. Call this work? What lucky lads we are.

Weve dreamed of doing a trip like this for years and finally we got the chance, but we didnt realise just how great it was all going to be. When you think of the Med you conjure up visions of blue seas, beautiful beaches and little islands, but there is so much more to it than that. The Mediterranean Sea is surrounded by 21 countries and there are more than 180 islands. We couldnt do everything on just one journey so we decided to stick to the Western Mediterranean that we know and love and concentrate on Italy, France and Spain and a few of their islands. It turned out to be the most exciting and rewarding adventure weve ever had.

And the great thing is that not only is Mediterranean food so tasty, the Mediterranean diet is also reckoned to be a really healthy one to follow lots of fresh vegetables and fruit, herbs, pulses, fish and meat; and lots and lots of olive oil. This is not a diet book, but we agree that the Mediterraneans have a great way of eating. And to prove the point, in Sardinia we found one of the worlds famous Blue Zones places where a much higher than average number of people live to over a hundred. Theres a cluster of villages in Sardinia that are full of centenarians. We went to visit and cook with them and what do you think we found? They eat a diet thats rich in lard because its a good cheap way of getting in lots of calories, which they need for their hard-working life on the land. Of course, they have loads of fresh veg, pulses and other good stuff as well.

We thought we knew these countries well but there was so much to discover. We wanted to find the real Mediterranean and experience it in a way we hadnt ever before. The area has an incredibly rich and varied history, with Greek, Roman, Moorish and other invaders and conquerors criss-crossing the waters of the Med over the last few thousand years and all have left their mark. The Med is a superhighway for history, culture and food and we found that when you scratch beneath the surface, Mediterranean cuisine isnt all one and the same it is a distillation of many cultures and traditions and still as varied as the countries themselves. And it is amazing that these influences havent been lost. They are alive and well you can still taste them in the food. We have never sampled any other cuisine that is so born out of its environment.

We started our journey in southern Italy, in Puglia and Calabria, where we ate some of the best and simplest food we came across during the whole trip. We moved on to the wild and rugged islands of Sardinia and Corsica and then to the South of France. From there we travelled to the Balearic Islands of Menorca and Mallorca and on to southern Spain, where our journey ended for now.

What we found is that despite their different histories, these lands are united by their attitude to food and the theme that ran right through our journey was seasonal, fresh, natural and simple. We always felt like we were getting the freshest and best of ingredients everywhere we went. It was like eating sunshine all day long and it made us smile.

We felt that the countries we visited must be the best places on Earth to live and we were touched by the genuine friendliness and generosity of everyone we met, from the people running the farms, restaurants and cafs where we filmed, to the fishermen on the beaches and the stallholders in the markets. Everyone was welcoming and so eager to talk to us about what they liked to cook and eat.

We learned so much about food. We found that much of Mediterranean cooking is instinctive and handed down from generation to generation and thats what keeps the traditions alive. Theres a way of doing things because thats how theyve always been done, and people stick to that rather than always striving for something new. Its also about eating whats available at any given time of year and showing the utmost respect for the ingredients. Mediterranean people have a deep interest in food. They dont eat to live, they live to eat. We watched shoppers in the market carefully inspecting every tomato, every piece of fish, before buying. They look forward to cooking and eating. Mealtimes are all about family and celebration, not just fuel.

The Mediterranean climate, the sun and the soil provide people with the most incredible environment to produce the food they eat. If you have just a scrap of land you can grow some of the best food in the world and talking to people we felt that if they could grow and pick everything they ate, they would. The produce is so good you dont always need to do much to it. In one bar in Italy we sat and ate broad beans straight from the pod with our drinks and wed never appreciated their flavour more.

All the way from Puglia to Torremolinos we found food to enjoy and celebrate food to rejoice in and that made us feel good. We were intoxicated by the experiences we had and we cant wait to go back. At one point in a beautiful spot in Andalucia, near the end of our journey, Dick our director turned to us and said: This must be heaven, mustnt it? We think hes right.

Love Si and Dave

Puglia and Calabria, in the heel and toe of Italy, are some of the poorest parts of the country and this is where we started our journey. Way back in the 8th century BC, these lands were occupied by the Greeks and the local dialect in some parts is still basically Ancient Greek. Even now, road signs in parts of Calabria are in Greek as well as Italian.

The food there was some of the best we had on our whole trip and it was simplicity itself. The culinary tradition there is known as cucina povera rustic food for the poor and was born of the need to make the best of cheap, simple, everyday ingredients and waste nothing. We met a chef called Giuseppe and he cooked us a dish of chickpeas and pasta we just couldnt get enough of it. Then we found ourselves waxing lyrical about turnip tops and chilli served with orecchiette, an ear-shaped pasta thats traditional in Puglia. It was truly great food but there was nothing fancy, nothing expensive. When we told Giuseppe how much we enjoyed his dishes he just shrugged it was normal food to him, just what he ate every day. Lucky man.

In Calabria we sampled some of the local sweet-tasting onions, known as tropea onions, which were brought there by the Greeks. We used them to make an excellent frittata. And we learned how to make the spicy pork paste known as nduja from an 85-year-old Calabrian lady and added some to an amazing Italian-American stromboli pizza. Wow!

CAPRESE SALAD

This salad is simplicity itself but it is a stunning dish. It does depend on good tomatoes though so is best made in summer when they have lots of flavour. Always use tomatoes that are at room temperature or warmed by the sun never fridge cold. If possible, use a mix of different colours and varieties, including some cherry tomatoes. Dont be tempted to mess it about with pesto or other bits and bobs, though. Keep this classic... well, classic!