“People think it’s a bad thing to be a tortilla-maker,” says Santiago Muñoz. “That’s the mentality we have to change. It should be a point of pride.” Santiago, 25, has spread out two dozen corn cobs, called mazorcas, on the table at the Mexico City warehouse of Maizajo, an heirloom corn tortilla company. The kernels are varied in shape and color: reds, yellows, blues, purples; some narrow, others wide. The diversity of the mazorcas on the table represents the ancestral knowledge of Mexican corn farmers around the country. Each variety comes with a story: that of the town and producer where Muñoz or one of his colleagues sourced it. Santiago points out the different uses for each variety of corn, including pozolero for pozole, and palomero for popcorn.

Five years ago, Diogo Gomes, the owner of Art Chopp, a bar in the Jacarepaguá neighborhood, was seated at one of the bar’s 36 tables. There were no customers: only him, the cook and two waiters. The heavy rain falling outside began to drip from the ceiling and soak the floors. Even wetter, though, was Diogo’s face – he was crying, he later explained to us, because he was sure that he would have to shutter the empty bar and give up on his lifelong dream. In addition to the lack of customers, he was facing a mountain of debts; Diogo was one step away from bankruptcy.

In 2017, Shanghai’s longest-running open-air market at Tangjiawan Lu, which had provided the neighborhood with fresh produce, fish, and seasonal foodstuffs for almost 115 years, shuttered its doors. The market and much of the area around the Laoximen metro station were some of the last historical (albeit run-down) structures in an otherwise central area full of expensive new residences. Construction has already begun on the entire city block’s worth of high-rises being built in its place, and the surrounding blocks – like many of Shanghai’s backstreets – are on notice, as the wrecking balls and construction crews continue to reshape the urban landscape at an incredibly fast rate.

In 2017, Shanghai’s longest-running open-air market at Tangjiawan Lu, which had provided the neighborhood with fresh produce, fish, and seasonal foodstuffs for almost 115 years, shuttered its doors. The market and much of the area around the Laoximen metro station were some of the last historical (albeit run-down) structures in an otherwise central area full of expensive new residences. Construction has already begun on the entire city block’s worth of high-rises being built in its place, and the surrounding blocks – like many of Shanghai’s backstreets – are on notice, as the wrecking balls and construction crews continue to reshape the urban landscape at an incredibly fast rate.

The huge counter at Adega Pérola in Rio de Janeiro contains a multitude of culinary surprises. The botequim offers more than 50 types of petiscos (the Portuguese terms for tapas) from both land and sea, and we have yet to try one that we didn’t like.

A café at its best is so much more than the sum of its parts: it’s a place where people can easily mingle, share ideas, and dertleşmek, or commiserate over their troubles, all while imbibing caffeine. At the same time, it’s a place where visitors might feel an invisible thread of common beliefs connecting them, an unspoken camaraderie, even if they don’t socialize with anyone. This community spirit runs strong in Dose & Istos Café, a new Rum (pronounced “room,” the name given to Turks of Greek descent) café in the heart of Beyoğlu. When we first went one rainy Sunday evening on a tip from a friend, we didn’t remember the exact address, just general directions that it was off Istiklal Street, near Galatasaray Lycée.

A visit to a pastelaria in Lisbon in the lead up to Easter brings with it new surprises. Alongside the usual pastries and cakes, you’ll spot folares, loaves of sweet bread, some topped with hardboiled eggs, and many surrounded by a colorful assortment of almonds. This type of bread, which contains ingredients forbidden during Lent, has long been associated with Easter and the feasting that occurs on this holiday. “After the winter months and the long fast during Lent, the Easter brings an intense activity in terms of culinary preparations and the exchange of cakes, namely the folares,” writes Mouette Barboff in her book A Tradição do Pão em Portugal (Bread in Portugal).

Up in Barcelona’s hills, in the El Coll neighborhood, where the city ends and the sky is cut by the spiky shapes of the pine trees in Collserola Park, Agreste de Fabio & Roser is sprouting up. Emphasizing sustainability and healthy eating, the restaurant is creating delicious dishes that merge Catalan and Italian traditions with contemporary flourishes. Room manager Roser Asensi and her partner, chef Fabio Gambirasi, created this project (the name means “bad weed” in Spanish) less than a year ago and people are already singing their praises. On a recent visit, we could hear words of admiration from different guests flying around the room over the course of our meal.

From Rio to Venice, from Cologne to New Orleans and from Patras to towns all over Greece, Catholics and Orthodox (along with believers and nonbelievers of every description) celebrate Carnival – the three weeks preceding Lent – with parades, masquerades, pranks, Dionysian revels and Lucullan feasts focusing on roasted meats. After all, the word “carnival” is thought to have come from the Italian carne levare or “abstain from meat” – which is also the meaning of the Greek Apokreas – and heralded a time when many religions prohibited consuming flesh during the sacred fast before Easter.

In the weeks leading up to Easter, the best confectioners in Barcelona erect astonishing and fantastical chocolate constructions, called monas de Pascua, and display them in shop windows. For some lucky children, these chocolate sculptures will be gifted to them by their godparents on Easter Sunday.

We returned to Tbilisi in 2002 with the intention of staying one year. On that first day back, our friends took us to a chummy brick-walled cellar in Sololaki. There was enough sunlight coming down through the door to illume low pine tables and seating for fifty people max. In a refrigerated counter, menu items were displayed: beef tongue, tomato and cucumber salad, assorted cheeses, badrijani (sliced fried eggplant stuffed with a garlicky walnut paste), all the standard stuff. It was a Georgian greasy spoon, for sure, with a kitchen that would make a health inspector shudder, but the khinkali were really good, and the house wine was as decent as it comes. The name of the place was Dukani Racha. Little did we know people had been coming here for decades.

When Buket Ulukut first moved from Istanbul to a rural plot of land in the foothills of the Taurus Mountains in southern Turkey, she was leading a double life. “I’d be taking calls from clients in Europe while out amidst the rows of peppers and eggplants, hoping they didn’t hear the rooster crowing in the background,” says Ulukut, who worked in the textile industry before establishing Tangala Goat Farm in Muğla’s serene Yaka village. Since Ulukut settled in the area in 2008, her herd has grown from two goats to more than 50, producing milk that is made on-site into artisan cheeses sold throughout Turkey. Over the same decade, the number of Turks swapping the city for the countryside has also multiplied, driven by rising urban stresses and an increasingly stifling political climate.

Nunu Gachecheladze, our “pickle queen” at the Deserter’s Bazaar, pickles everything on site from produce she gets at the bazaar, based on her family recipe. While they’re all outstanding, our favorites are her pickled cucumbers and carrots.

The name Casa dos Passarinhos (House of Little Birds) seems to give everyone pause – whenever we talk about or recommend the restaurant, almost all of our conversation partners flash a nervous smile, seemingly wondering, “Are little birds what they serve?” Far from it (although some restaurants do specialize in serving thrushes). This popular restaurant, which has been around since 1923, took its name from the birds – sparrows, specifically – that used to be allowed to fly freely inside the restaurant. Many years before Hitchcock made them the villains in his movie “The Birds,” original owner José dos Santos Gomes made them the heroes of this backstreet spot in Campo de Ourique, on the border with the Amoreiras neighborhood.

One day, or so the story goes, a group of tourists asked an elderly priest in Naples which churches were really worth visiting. The priest replied, “There are many churches, but have you tried the spaghetti with clams?” Even a man of God recognizes the sacred bond established between two people sharing a plate of spaghetti with clams in a Neapolitan trattoria. So we consider it our moral duty to advise you how to order your spaghetti with clams and where to eat it.