Rosemary

Rosemary grows as a hedge plant across Greece, in gardens, on roadsides and along the edges of fields, which makes its relatively narrow role in the cooking slightly surprising. Where it does appear it is used with confidence: pork, rabbit and potatoes take it well, and the Ionian islands, with their long Venetian connection, lean on it more heavily than the rest of the country does.

Savoro is the clearest example, a Corfiot dish of fried fish covered in a hot marinade of red wine vinegar, garlic, rosemary and currants, made to keep the catch edible through hot weather before there was ice. Crete uses it too, in hochlioi boubouristi, where a sprig or two goes into the pan with the vinegar the moment the fried snails come off the heat.

Rosemary is easier to overdo than any other herb in common Greek use. Its oils are strong and slightly medicinal, and too much in a braise flattens everything around it, which is why Greek recipes tend to use whole sprigs that can be lifted out rather than chopped leaves that cannot. Fresh is much better than dried here, since dried rosemary keeps the bitterness and loses most of the pine.