Fats in Cypriot nutrition and gastronomy

Pork fat was considered to be inferior to both olive oil and butter in terms of organoleptic characteristics. However, in areas where olive oil was not produced, pork fat was often the only fat used in households. Pork fat was mainly used in cooking, but also as a kind of spread. In the villages of Karpasia, in north-eastern Cyprus, they used to make millopites, a special sweet dish, using pork fat. The culinary choices of the Cypriot villagers reflect their efforts to exploit to the full whatever sources of fat the environment would provide to them. In the poorer areas of Cyprus, when villagers had no access to sufficient quantities of olive oil, they would use substitute oils obtained from the wild flora of the island, such as arkolao, the bitter oil from wild olives, oil from šinnos plant and terebinth oil. After 1960, the use of traditional fats, such as pork fat, declined considerably and was replaced by the 'newer' fats, the various seed oils.