Mediterranean cuisine is the food and methods of preparation used by the people of the Mediterranean Basin. The idea of a Mediterranean cuisine originates with the cookery writer Elizabeth David's book, A Book of Mediterranean Food and was amplified by other writers working in English. Many writers define the three core elements of the cuisine as the olive, wheat, and the grape, yielding olive oil, bread and pasta, and wine; other writers deny that the widely varied foods of the Mediterranean basin constitute a cuisine at all. A common definition of the geographical area covered, proposed by David, follows the distribution of the olive tree.
The region spans a wide variety of cultures with distinct cuisines, in particular the Maghrebi, Egyptian, Levantine, Ottoman, Greek, Italian, Provençal, and Spanish, though some authors include additional cuisines. Portuguese cuisine, in particular, is partly Mediterranean in character.