Potato

Potatoes reached Greece late and by deliberate policy: Ioannis Kapodistrias, the first governor of the independent state, pushed them onto a sceptical population in the 1820s, and the story goes that he only succeeded once he had a shipment placed under armed guard, which convinced people the crop was worth stealing. They took hold quickly and now sit in more Greek dishes than almost any other vegetable.

Patates lemonates, potatoes roasted in lemon juice, olive oil, garlic and oregano until the edges catch and the liquid reduces to a sticky glaze, is the version most people meet first, and it wants a floury potato that will drink the liquid rather than a waxy one that resists it. Undercooking is rare here; the tray is meant to go well past the point where the potatoes would be merely done.

Elsewhere the potato does quieter work: mashed with raw garlic and oil into skordalia, layered under moussaka, simmered in briam and in most ladera dishes alongside green beans or courgettes. Cyprus has its own treatment in patates antinachtes, small potatoes cracked open with a knife rather than cut, fried and finished with red wine and crushed coriander seed, where the broken surfaces hold the sauce.