Salt

Greece has made salt by evaporating seawater for as long as it has cooked, and the salt pans around Messolonghi still supply most of the country. Coarse sea salt is the working salt of a Greek kitchen rather than a finishing luxury: it goes into the brine for olives and feta, into cures for meats such as apaki and lakerda, and into the water for boiling greens.

Salt does structural work in Greek cooking before it does any seasoning. Sliced aubergine and grated courgette are salted and left to weep so they fry rather than steam, and grated cucumber for tzatziki is salted and squeezed for the same reason. In each case most of the salt leaves with the water it draws out, which is why those steps rarely make the finished dish taste salty.

The common mistake is seasoning early in a dish that carries salt from somewhere else. Feta, olives, capers, brined cheeses and cured pork all bring their own, and a bean stew or a salad salted before they go in usually ends up overdone. Dried pulses are traditionally left unsalted until they are properly tender, on the reasoning that early salt keeps the skins tough.