Cretan cuisine has changed little since Thisseas and Daedalos, and the kingdom of King Minos is a culinary wonderland for those willing and able to get off the beaten path. But there’s little to take home from the fifth-largest island in the Mediterranean in the way of dishes or ingredients. Most of the food on the island must be eaten on site.

Cretan bread is in a league of its own. The island’s bakeries offer different versions of paximadia—twice-baked breads made with chickpea flour or ancient island grains like barley—that are moistened under the tap, drizzled with excellent local olive oil, and eaten at daily. Other dry rolls and biscuits, from spiced chickpea loaves to ornately decorated breads for births, engagements, weddings and funerals, round out the selection of island baked goods.

Vegetables are the defining element of the Cretan table and are cooked in a hundred different ways. The most accessible places to try them are small village taverns where menus include wild thistles, simmered with rabbit, borage, red-flecked celery, wild carrot leaves, bryony, mallow, small wild asparagus, and dozens of others. island vegetables and herbs.

Crete produces many cheeses, notably the delicious anthotyro, graviera, a sweet, yellow sheep’s milk cheese that is traditionally aged in mountain caves near Rethymno. The easiest places to buy Cretan cheeses are the markets of Iraklio, Rethymno and Hania, the three main cities of the island. Hania has one of the most beautiful closed markets in Greece.

Cretan snails are among the best in the world. They appear in restaurants and taverns only when it’s in season, but the number of recipes rivals the number of cooks. Bourbourista, a popular local preparation, combines rosemary, salt, and vinegar in the pan. The snails are cooked with wild fennel, stewed or simmered in a pilaf with hondro (bulgur).

All Greek roads eventually lead to Athens. There is no identifiable cuisine specific to the capital of Greece, but much can be said about the city’s Central Market and the renewed vigor of its restaurants. Many edible Greek treasures can now be found tucked away somewhere in Athenian shops, and a journey beyond tourist menus to corner eateries and home cooking will richly reward those who take the trouble to search.