The fourteenth century saw a little ice age that affected cereal growing throughout Europe and the olive groves in Provence. In the Languedoc, a series of frosts killed the olive trees between 1565 and 1624, discouraging planters from attempting its cultivation. The Mediterranean trinity of wheat, olive, and vine was born of the climate and history. Throughout the Mediterranean one finds an identical agricultural civilization of farmers, peasants, and shepherds. Mediterranean cultures share the same traditional granaries, wine-cellars, and oil presses.
Daily lives follow the same rhythm.
As late as the nineteenth century, fruit vendors in the markets of Palermo and Cairo used the same curious cry to sell their oranges and other fruits so that one never really knew what was being sold. Maybe the inevitability of severe weather causes this mentality or maybe it's the religious passion of Mediterranean peoples. The Word of God, whether through the Talmud, the New Testament, or the Koran, speaks loudly throughout the Mediterranean. The entire Mediterranean produced wine and had vineyards, even the Muslim countries, in spite of the Koranic injunction against alcoholic beverages. Muslim poets for centuries extolled the virtues of the vine.