Oaxaca

Building Blocks: Quesillo, Oaxaca’s Dairy Queen

The line between legend and actual history is often blurred by time, particularly when it comes to the origins of beloved foods. Such is the case of Oaxaca’s most popular cheese, quesillo, a type of string cheese that’s a member of the pasta filata (“spun paste” in Italian) family, similar to mozzarella. The most widespread origin story is that in 1885, Leobarda Castellanos, a 14-year-old girl in charge of preparing the cheese at her family’s business, got distracted and let the milk coagulate past the exact point for making cheese. To avoid being punished, she tipped hot water over the milk, accidentally creating a gummy product that unexpectedly became very popular among the clients of the Castellanos family in the Oaxacan village of Reyes Etla, the official birthplace of quesillo.

Athens

Recipe: Fanouropita, a Greek Cake Fit for a Saint

As anyone familiar with Greek folk religious traditions and habits can tell you, communication between Greeks and their saints has traditionally been quite direct – saints are addressed with respect, of course, but also in a friendly and familiar manner. I myself have witnessed several people – almost always of the older generations – have a proper “conversation” (more like a monologue) with the saint of their choice. Each saint has a particular day on which they’re celebrated; in some places, large festivals are thrown in their patron saint’s honor, with people of all ages dancing and drinking wine until the early morning hours. Throughout the year, it’s common for Greeks to make special “deals” with their saints.

Istanbul

Building Blocks: Simit, Turkey’s Lord of the (Bread) Rings

Sold by roving vendors, street carts and bakeries, spread with a triangle of soft cheese or tossed to circling seagulls from the ferry, the humble simit has become a quintessential symbol of Istanbul – and of Turkey more broadly. But there’s more to this sesame-coated bread ring that it may at first appear, as demonstrated by the reactions last autumn to a piece of unexpected news from abroad. “Hang out the flags!” Turkish food-delivery giant Yemeksepeti tweeted exuberantly when the Oxford English Dictionary announced in October 2019 that the word “simit” had been officially added as an entry, saving future translators from having to employ awkwardly inadequate substitutes such as “Turkish bagel” when writing in English about the popular snack. Amid the general celebrating on social media, however, one group of Turks was decidedly not pleased.

Marseille

Exosud: Levantine Larder

Sandwiched between Cours Julien and La Plaine, Rue Saint-Michel is stuffed with a smorgasbord of epicurean shops. Each window display is an edible advertisement: wheels of cheese at Art de la Fromagerie and mushroom-stuffed raviolis at Pâtes Fraiches et Raviolis Cédric Bianco tempting passersby behind the glass. The signless number 26 is more nondescript. From across the street, the mural of handymen above the storefront makes it seem like a hardware store. The jars of pickled vegetables beside the door say otherwise. Go inside, and you’ll find one of Marseille’s best épiceries.

Queens

Max & Mina’s Ice Cream: Sweet Escape

At a shopping center like this, we’d expect an ice cream parlor. In a long strip of businesses set back from the street, we spot a pharmacy, a photo lab and a dry cleaner, a mobile phone store, two eyecare shops and a cinema (“returning soon,” proclaims the marquee; “stay safe”). And our eyes take in lots of food, all of it kosher, in this predominantly Jewish area of Kew Gardens Hills: a dairy restaurant and sushi bar, a bagel-and-appetizing shop, a butcher, a Chinese restaurant, a schnitzel specialist, a pizzeria that also fries up falafel. If we hadn’t visited before, however, we’d never imagine that this particular parlor has a repertoire of more than 10,000 flavors. (Not all at once, of course.)

Marseille

Chez Madie Les Galinettes: The Joy of Provençal Cooking

From Gascogne’s prized ducks to the buckwheat gallettes of Bretagne, each chunk of France has its distinct food traditions. In Marseille, the capital of Provence, the recipes brim with the region’s olive oil, garlic and tomatoes as well as plenty of Mediterranean fish. On menus around town, you’ll find an anchoïade here or artichauts à la barigoule (braised artichokes) there, but it is hard to find a restaurant that is fully devoted to the Provençal classics. Chez Madie les Galinettes is one of the few. From alouettes sans tête (beef roll ups in tomato sauce) to soupe de poisson, the menu reads like a Marseille mamie’s (grandmother’s) cookbook. You’ll feel like you’re dining in a local’s home, thanks to the familial warmth of its ebullient owner, Delphine Roux.

Queens

CB Book Club: John Wang and Storm Garner’s “The World Eats Here”

Since its founding in 2015, the Queens Night Market has inspired a thrill in the borough and beyond, one that – for us at least – calls to mind boundless childhood summers. Running Saturday nights from April to October, it brings vendor-chefs together from over 80 countries for the community to gather and celebrate with great food. While the pandemic has put the 2020 season on indefinite hold, this spring fortuitously saw the release of the official Queens Night Market cookbook, The World Eats Here: Amazing Food and the Inspiring People Who Make It at New York’s Queens Night Market (The Experiment; May 12, 2020). Co-authored by Queens Night Market founder John Wang and Storm Garner, a filmmaker and oral historian, the cookbook showcases 88 vibrant and diverse recipes directly from Queens Night Market’s vendor-chefs.