Mint

Mint occupies a narrower but more specific role in Greek cooking than the herb enjoys in, say, Middle Eastern or South Asian food: it turns up chopped through minced meat mixtures, most reliably in keftedes and in the filling for stuffed vegetables, giving a clean, cool background note against the fattier meat and the warmth of any cinnamon in the mix.

It is also the herb that most clearly divides Cypriot cooking from mainland Greek cooking in one specific dish: Cypriot koupepia, stuffed vine leaves with meat, use mint running through the filling, where the equivalent mainland dolmades lean on dill instead. Swap the herb and the dish reads as belonging to the other tradition.

Fresh mint is what both traditions actually want; dried mint is used but treated as a distinctly different, muskier ingredient, reached for in things like Cypriot flaounes rather than as a simple substitute for the fresh leaf.