For good measure they also unveiled a terrifying 3, 500kg batch of tabbouleh, the cracked wheat and parsley salad for which Lebanon is justly famed.

ECONOMIST: A good-humoured war over food

The small amount of animal protein eaten on Crete is cooked in olive oil and usually made with greens, grains or pulses: sea bass with purslane, pork with cracked wheat, chicken with peas.

NPR: Crete: Ancient Diet with Modern Message

Gastronomic gigantism may be a fad in Lebanon, where chefs recently baked a tray of kibbeh, a pie of minced meat and cracked wheat, at 20 square metres (215 square feet) a candidate for the Guinness Book of Records.

ECONOMIST: A good-humoured war over food

Separately, researchers have cracked the mystery of how stripe rust is able to overcome resistance in wheat so quickly.

ECONOMIST: Wheat rust and world farming