“Is that Greece or Turkey?,” we would wonder, as The Borina sailed along the Anatolian coast. Above us, blue sky; around us, the deeper blue of the Aegean and rocky chunks of sun-baked land dusted with little patches of green, olive trees perhaps, or gorse.
On the map, it looks simple enough: the mainland is Turkish, the islands are Greek. But on the ground – or rather from the sea – it is sometimes hard to tell them apart. Greece and Turkey might be the chalk and cheese of the Mediterranean, next-door neighbours albeit at times the kind of neighbour you might want to serve with an ASBO. Yet sailing past them, a Greek island looks much like a Turkish peninsula.
“I think that’s Kos,” Theodore Kyriakou might reply after a slight pause. Kyriakou, our host for our week-long cookery course, is Greek, of course. You could call him the Real Greek, after his restaurant in Hoxton, East London, and the growing chain of Real Greek Souvlaki bar and grills.
Our boat, The Borina, is Turkish, one of ten traditional “gulets” operated by Tussock Cruises, an Anglo-Dutch company sailing out of Bodrum, with a Turkish crew (highly capable sailors, who double as equally hospitable providers of delicious Turkish food and wine). So as we spend a week sailing between Turkey and the nearby Greek islands of Kos, Nysiros and Simi, it’s inevitable that we spend some time thinking about what these two peoples have in common – not least the food.
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There are, of course, considerable differences. “Turkey is closer to the Middle East,” Kyriakou explains, “so there are things like coriander and chilli which you simply wouldn’t find in western Greece, where the cooking tends to be simpler, often based on just two or three wonderful ingredients.” But there are overlapping traditions, not least in these islands and on the coast of Turkey, “where the cooking can be remarkably similar”.
Small wonder, as until the 20th century came along, with its desire for nation states and tidy borders, it could be even trickier deciding what was Greek and what was Turkish around here. We got a sense of this on our first day, when we sailed into Kos harbour to go through customs. It couldn’t be more Greek, from the bouzouki music of the cafés and the blue and white flags, to the ancient temple of Venus a few yards from the water. But just beside the classical ruins is a fine old mosque – carefully preserved, but redundant.
On the mainland, conversely, are flourishing mosques, while redundant churches stand as relics of the Greek communities that thrived here for several millennia, only to be uprooted in 1923. With the so-called “Exchange of Populations”, more than a million Greek Christians left the Turkish mainland and almost half as many Turkish Muslims went in the opposite direction.
Again, simple on paper, to the diplomats who drew up the Treaty of Lausanne; rather more complicated on the ground, and even today, local papers run heart-rending stories of elderly “exchangeables” taking the ferry across with the daytrippers to get a last look at the house they were born in.
“Politics and history is something else, but on a human level,” Kyriakou insists, “Greeks and Turks get on.” This sentiment is borne out by the easy banter between our host and The Borina’s Turkish cook as they share a galley, swap tips and discuss ingredients (using clues such as “the herb that grows in the mountains”). Perhaps more surprisingly, the passengers get along, too, which isn’t bad going considering that most of us were strangers to each other at the start of the cruise.
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A Swedish art director working in London, a teacher from the Home Counties, a housewife, the French owner of a Knightsbridge boutique, a Chilean-born, London-based photographer’s agent, a model, a City accountant who downshifted and moved to New Zealand, and a marketing manager from the food department of a leading supermarket... Your typical hostess might worry about this line-up for a conventional dinner party, let alone one that reconvenes several times a day to prepare and/or eat food.
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“No two cruises are the same,” explains Loos Douze, co-owner of Tussock (which has a great reputation and an impressive amount of repeat business). Some cruises are quiet, some hedonist, most somewhere in between, a point arrived at through the unique chemistry of each passenger list. With Tussock’s common-or-garden cruises, Douze works hard to ensure that people end up on a boat that is right for them, placing families with young children together, for example, and making sure singletons aren’t stranded, Bridget-Jones-style, on a boat full of smug marrieds. But even on the specialist cruises, like our foodie one, where people share a common interest, it is intriguing to find yourself on a boat for a week with strangers.
Yet somehow it worked, and after a few days we likened our trip to an especially good-natured version of Big Brother, in which, as well as food being prepared, confidences were shared, amusing anecdotes exchanged and pasts, presents and futures discussed over glasses of rosé. One way or another, we got to know an extraordinary amount about each other’s lives – all against the backdrop of blue skies and a tilting deck, or by night under an astonishing number of stars.
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Our days would begin with a quick dip in the sea (such a good hangover cure) and breakfast, followed by a workshop in which Kyriakou would talk us through the preparation of a particular dish. Along the way he would tell stories, field questions and crack jokes, as we performed repetitive but strangely pleasing tasks, such as chopping tomatoes, preparing the aubergines for moussaka, trimming okra or (especially satisfying, this) folding spoonfuls of greens and feta into parcels of filo pastry to make tiropitakia.
Kyriakou is a modest man, but he has the kind of voice you could listen to all day. He loves the sea – and is happy to talk about how his years at sea informed the cooking at his first restaurant, Livebait, in South London, where he wowed customers with audacious combinations such as mussels and merguez sausage or cod with black pudding.
Kyriakou joined the Merchant Navy after school, then spent two years as a volunteer on a Greenpeace boat before arriving in London in 1989 . He learnt how to cook commercially in St John and the old French House, before opening Livebait in 1995 and then The Real Greek in 1999. (The “real” highlighted the fact that most “Greek” restaurants in the UK actually serve Greek Cypriot food, which Kyriakou enjoys but argues isn’t quite the same thing.)
The real deal went down well with press and public alike, and without being too didactic, Kyriakou clearly enjoys spreading the message about good Greek cooking. “Trips like this are fun,” he explains, “talking to people who are enthusiastic about food and want to learn.” He is also knowledgable about the islands we visit, the cooking we sample, the best places to fish, or the fact that the Neo-Classical architecture above the beautiful harbour in Simi isn’t Greek or even Turkish so much as Venetian. (Even within living memory the island was ruled by Italy.)
Back in Turkey for the final night of our trip, we head to the home of a local family, where we prepare supper over Primus stoves in the garden, cooking alongside the mother of the house who stands at the traditional oven making delicious flatbread, before sitting down to eat. Then delicious smells of Greek cooking fill the air once more, as they must have done hereabouts for centuries.
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Need to know
Theodore Kyriakou will host a week-long cookery cruise with Tussock Cruising from October 7, £543pp, including most meals, snacks, all on-board drinks, but excluding flights. First Choice and Thomas Cook fly regularly to Bodrum. Tussock boats sail from April to November, from £443pp, and are available for private charter (020-8510 9292; www.tussockcruising.com)