Food

Since there are people are on Brač, soil was cultivated.  The most important plants that were grown were olives, grapevines, fig trees, carob trees, sour cherrys and almonds.

Olive tree and olive oil are especially significant, in a way you can say that olive crops „labeled“  Brač and made it recognizable.

Olives became main agricultural crops since the period of Republic of Venice (16C). Back at that time according to the law people had to plant a lot of trees (even to get a licence to get married)  and wild trees had to be inoculated with tame ones. After few hundred years, olives became most important crop of Brač. Through furher history number of olive trees was changing, mostly due to plant diseases, but also during the time of World Wars.

Besides this, in the vegetable gardens of Brač people, legumes were unavoidable and still are today.  So is the fish, and the most common way to conservate it was to dry it or to cure it.

Except from that, wild edible plants were always very popular and still is.

Since few decades ago, lambchop is usually mentioned as a specialty from Brač, that is becouse sheep are used to eat the grass in the olive groves and fertilize it. But if you speak to older people they would say that fish and legumes were always on the plate, they won’t mention lambchop..


Hrana

Od kada je ljudi na Braču, obrađivala se škrta zemlja. Bračani su uzgajali prije svega masline, vinovu lozu, smokve, rogač, višnje, bajame.

Maslina je posebno važna za otok Brač, na neki način možemo reći da je to biljka koja ga je obilježila i po kojoj je Brač prepoznatljiv, a posebice po svom maslinovom ulju te ćemo stoga napisati još koju riječ o prošlosti ove biljke na Braču.

Maslina je postala glavna kultura od vremena Mletačke republike (16.st.) kada se zakonskim regulama moralo saditi mnogo maslina (čak i kao uvjet da bi se mogo vjenčati), a divlje masline navrtati. Nakon nekoliko stotina godina, Brač je takorekuć postao maslinarska velesila. Kroz daljnju povijest broj maslina se mijenjao, najviše zbog bolesti, a i zbog svjetskih ratova.

U vrtovima Bračana nezaobilazna je bila sočivica, a u tanjuru riba, koja se najčešće čuvala tako da se usoli ili osuši.

Osim toga, oduvijek je u prehrani jako bio zastupljeno samoniklo jestivo bilje, a tako je i danas.

Noviji trend je janjetina, obzirom da Bračani imaju puno ovaca koje jedu travu pod maslinama, a u isto vrijeme ih gnoje.