Food And Drink in Greece

Greek cooking changes from island to island more than the meze in a tourist taverna suggests. On Crete everything is done with olive oil — consumed here in greater quantity per head than anywhere in the world — and there is dakos, a barley rusk with tomato and mizithra. On Santorini cherry tomatoes and white aubergines grow, adapted to volcanic soil without water. In Thessaloniki the food is Ottoman in origin: bougatsa, layered pies, plenty of spice.

The programmes follow three lines. The wine line takes in Santorini, where the vine is trained in a ring on the ground to shelter it from the wind and assyrtiko gives a dry wine with a salt note; then Naxos, Crete and Mykonos. The cooking line means classes on Paros and Naxos, where you first go to the market and then cook. The food-walk line covers Thessaloniki and Athens, where dishes are explained through the history of the neighbourhoods.

Practical notes. Meze is built for a group: there is no need for a main course each, and four people usually take eight to ten plates. Greeks eat lunch at two or three and dinner after nine, and before that a village taverna may be empty. Tastings are almost always out of town, so the option with a driver is easier than a rental. The grape harvest falls in late August and September.