Seven of us are sat in a row, like suspects in an ID parade. Only this line-up is at a linen-covered table on which are laid more knives, forks and spoons than you tend to find in the cutlery section of your average department store.
Exhibit one is brought forward for inspection: a vast, sky-blue plate bearing a stupendous looking salad of young broad beans, chickpeas, fried courgette strips, mixed baby lettuce leaves and golden courgette flowers, all tossed in a simple lemon juice and olive oil dressing. If anything, the taste is even more staggering than the appearance: fresh, vibrant, light as air.
It is not hard to spot whodunnit, either: he's standing right in front of us wearing a big white hat. Chef Polycarpos Demetriou is familiarising his pupils with the food of his homeland, and this spectacular salad is just the beginning of lesson one in a Greek Cypriot cooking holiday.
It's a belt-challenging introductory seminar that continues through a salad of tomatoes, basil, oregano and anari (a local cheese that's a bit like ricotta); a Greek salad made spiky with fresh coriander and wild greens; king prawns cooked in a fresh tomato, garlic, feta and ouzo sauce; red mullet fillet stuffed with chard, pinenuts and pesto; snapper fillet with tomato and herb sauce; chicken breast with okra; lamb fillet with a feta, spring onion and pinenut crust; all rounded off with a bewildering selection of honey-sweet pastries and washed down with what seem like gallons of local wine.
Come to think of it, that is gallons of local wine, judging by the empty bottles standing at the far end of the table like skittles in a bowling rink. Polycarpos Demetriou doesn't mess about when it comes to the dining experience.
And all this is only lunch on the first day. Somehow, my digestive system will have to deal with that little lot before we resume our studies at dinner tonight. As for the testing examination that looms over the next week... Well, I'm here to learn, so I'll just have to give it my best shot.
Open any glossy magazine or turn on the television, and chances are you'll come across lip-smacking images of food. Not any old food, mind; more often than not, the dishes will be inspired by the cooking of the Mediterranean. Anywhere in the Med, that is, as long as it's not Greece. Be honest, who do you know who has gone on holiday to Greece or its islands and come back eulogising about the food? We're not talking Italy here, and there really is only so much grilled meat and Greek salad that a person can take.
But that's where you'd be wrong, Polycarpos says. That Greek cuisine has, at best, an indifferent reputation boils down to one simple fact: something, somewhere, has gone seriously awry with its PR. After all, the region boasts similar produce to that found in the larders of Italy, Spain and France; some of it - Kalamata olives, the ubiquitous lamb, the mountain herbs and the honey - is even lauded as the best of its type in the world.
In fact, Polycarpos is so fed up with Europe's perception of Greece as the greasy spoon in the continental culinary constellation that he's opened a cooking school - lessons are shared between his base, the Annabelle Hotel, in Paphos, southwest Cyprus, and the Anassa, a little way up the coast in Latchi - to show us how wrong we are. Which is where we came in...
In between meals, Polycarpos takes us up to Ktima, Paphos old town, at the top of an escarpment that overlooks the harbour. The market there is a shadow of its former self, he explains, but still offers an illuminating insight into the Cypriot way with food. And, anyway, before we get down to cooking lunch, we really ought to buy something to work with.
The old municipal market doesn't look up to much at first: its covered corridors are festooned with lairy acrylic football shirts and tacky imitations of the famed local lacework. So where's the meat, the fish, the fruit and veg? The heartbeat of the market, the food, has been forced outside, on to a shady square nearby.
Here, mounds of juicy citrus fruits vie for the attention with peppers and tomatoes as gnarled and chemically-untreated as the land that bore them; and a couple of understandably terrified looking rabbits quiver in a cage at the feet of a man selling lamb preserved in salt, a regional speciality that just cries out for a cold beer. Each stall specialises in just one or two products - this is no place for corporate producers - and there's not a plastic packet or cling-film wrap in sight. Everything looks good enough to, well, eat.
All chefs are obsessed with the quality of their ingredients, but Polycarpos has taken that preoccupation to another level entirely. Paphos market, for all its surface appeal, has lost much of its bustle over the years, he says, so he persuaded his bosses - the owners of the appealingly relaxed Annabelle and its even more upmarket sister hotel, the Anassa - to set up their own farm.
"It's a pity, but our local suppliers just couldn't guarantee the calibre of produce we needed any more," he says, by way of explanation for the 125-acre site a few miles outside town.
Polycarpos cuts an unlikely figure as the new kid on the cooking-school block, however. For one thing, he has been slaving over a hot stove for more than a quarter of a century now and, at nearly 50, he's no spring chicken - he even walks at a tilt, as if in a state of permanent readiness for the moment when he'll again be stooping over his pots and pans. For another, he's a total idealist - listen to him describe the provenance of a dish, or watch him mix just the right amount of this with a splash of that, and he comes across more as an unofficial ambassador for food than a chef.
A few meals into the course - watching, learning, getting fatter - and you soon realise that Polycarpos's mission to raise the profile of his national table isn't impossible, either. Greek food, in particular as it is interpreted here, really can be quite stunning, as revelatory to the tastebuds as that first proper Italian or French meal.
Best of all, the whole experience is not one of those mind-blowingly intricate cheffy extravaganzas for which you need a diploma just to work out which pan should be used for what. Polycarpos is not into that sort of thing at all. Most of his dishes are so unexpectedly quick and uncomplicated to prepare that even inexperienced cooks will come away feeling that they could take on Gordon Ramsay. What with the flash-Harry antics of your average celebrity chef, Polycarpos's simple approach of just letting the food speak for itself is something of a novelty, too.
And blow me if it doesn't work: seven days later, we're not only completely stuffed, but inspired, too. In fact, one member of the class is so overcome with the realisation that she really will be able to recreate these dishes at home that she is seriously considering kidnapping Polycarpos and smuggling him on to the plane as excess baggage: "He's so sweet that you want to eat him up," she explains. "Just like one of his puddings."
What Bob learned to cook on his holiday
Trachanas (couscous and yoghurt soup)
Serves 4-6
Ingredients: 1.5 litres chicken stock; 70g couscous; 30ml fresh lemon juice; 200ml Greek yoghurt, strained; 75ml double cream; 2 egg yolks; 100g halloumi, grated.
Method: Place the stock in a large saucepan and bring to the boil. Add the couscous and lemon juice, return to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
In a bowl, combine the yoghurt, cream, egg yolks and halloumi. Pour in a little of the hot couscous and stock, whisking all the time, then whisk in a further 150ml of hot stock. Pour into the soup pan, still whisking, and bring back to the boil.
Cook for 2-3 minutes, until slightly thickened, then season with a little salt and black pepper (take care, as halloumi is rather salty).
Lamb fillet with strained yoghurt, feta and pinenuts
Serves 4
Ingredients: 4 x 140g pieces lamb fillet, seasoned with salt and pepper; 2 tbsp olive oil; 175ml Greek yoghurt; 115g feta, crumbled; 60g toasted pinenuts; 15ml spring onion greens, chopped; fresh basil, chopped; 2 egg yolks; 1/2 tsp ground cumin; 1 tbsp olive oil.
Method: Preheat oven to 200C/400F/gas mark 6. Heat a large frying pan until hot, then add 2 tbsp olive oil and the seasoned lamb. Fry for a couple of minutes on each side, until browned. Remove from the pan and set aside. Pat the fillets dry with kitchen paper.
Place all the remaining ingredients in a large bowl, except half the pinenuts, and mix until well combined. Chill in the fridge for 10 minutes. Divide the yoghurt mixture equally into four, and spoon over one side of each lamb fillet. Scatter over the remaining pinenuts, then place the meat on a roasting tray and return to the fridge for 10 minutes. Remove, and cook in the oven for 5-8 minutes, depending how pink you like your lamb. Allow to rest for a few minutes before serving, sliced thickly.
Halouvas with walnuts
Serves 8
Ingredients: 250g semolina; 75ml corn oil; 1 litre hot water; 250g walnuts, chopped; 100ml honey; 150g caster sugar; 1 tbsp rosewater; 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon; 8 walnut halves.
Method: Lightly oil 8 individual ramekins or dariole moulds. Heat a large saucepan until hot, add the oil and, when it is hot, pour in the semolina and, stirring all the time, cook for 5 minutes until lightly toasted. Pour in the hot water, continuing to stir, and bring to the boil. Turn down the heat and simmer for a few minutes, then add the remaining ingredients except the walnut halves, stirring all the while.
Cook for 10 minutes until thickened and all the liquid is absorbed, then spoon into the prepared ramekins. Allow to cool slightly before placing in the fridge to chill, preferably overnight.
To serve, turn out on to individual plates and garnish with the walnut halves.
The practicals
Bob Granleese travelled to Cyprus with The Mediterranean Experience (020-8445 6000). The first of Polycarpos Demetriou's seven-day cooking schools, comprising three nights at the Annabelle Hotel, Paphos, and four at the Anassa, Latchi, runs from November 6-13, and costs £1,395 per person, including return flights, seven nights' accommodation half-board and all cooking lessons. Polycarpos Demetriou's book, Food From The Village, is published by Thanos Press, priced £15, and is available from Thanos Sales Office, 2nd Floor, 676 High Road, London N12 8LB.
