Spata (pop. 10,000) lies just 20 km east of Athens and is probably best known as the location of Athens International Airport. But the town is more than just a gateway into and out of the region – especially at the end of June. That’s when Spata hosts a festival to honor St. Peter and St. Paul, the official protectors of the city. The highlight of the festival comes at the end of the last day, June 30, with a glorious communal meal: Enormous quantities of braised beef that have been cooked for 12 hours over a wood fire are served to all the citizens of Spata and visitors to the town.

Carnitas, a pork dish that originated in the state of Michoacán, can be found in restaurants, markets and street stalls all over Mexico City – it’s a fixture of the chilango diet. The other day, we received an invitation to visit a carnitas place that our host said would blow our minds – and that’s definitely the kind of offer we never refuse.

In Catalonia around the summer solstice, we make one of our most traditional liqueurs, ratafía, for which the herbs, fruit and flowers that are macerated in alcohol must be collected on Saint John’s Eve, or June 23. This highly aromatic digestif has long been believed to have medicinal properties. There’s even an old Catalan rhyme along those lines: Ratafía, tres o cuatro al día (“Ratafía, three or four per day”). Different versions of the liqueur have been made for centuries in eastern Spain and some regions of France and Italy but, like the other herb liqueurs throughout Europe, they originated from the Ancient Roman and Greek custom of macerating fruit and herbs in wine, from Arabian perfume distillation and from the sophisticated medieval distillations in monasteries and convents that created the first aguardientes, or grape-based, medicinal liqueurs.

Editor’s note: In the latest installment of our recurring feature, First Stop, we asked Asia-based photographer David Hagerman where he stops first for food when he arrives in Mexico City. Hagerman’s work has appeared in the New York Times, Saveur, Food & Wine, AFAR, SBS Feast and the Wall Street Journal, among many other publications.

Charming and surprising, Fehmi Özsüt has an easy, no-worries smile that belies a life full of unbelievable stories and intense work. Every day, even on weekends, he wakes up at 3 a.m. in order to run his kaymak business. A quivery clotted cream made from water buffalo milk, kaymak is served with honey and bread for a rich and filling breakfast. Since 1915, Özsüt’s family of Albanian immigrants has run the Karaköy Özsüt muhallebici, or milk pudding shop. Now he is carrying the torch and managing a small water buffalo farm to supply the main ingredient for the shop’s traditional desserts.

In Spain, pork is serious business; it’s been a fundamental part of the diet here for millennia. Pigs were an important animal on the first Celtic farms and also for the Iberians (around the 6th century BCE), who would sell to other Mediterranean peoples salted and cured pork, as well as olive oil and wine. In that time, the Romans – who already loved and produced ham, even creating ham-shaped coins as a symbol of value – appreciated the ham from Iberian lands such as Tarraco, where, recently, a fossilized ham was found that was more than 2,000 years old (now that’s what we call aged!).

The cosmopolitan island of Aegina sits in the center of the Saronic Gulf, a few miles away from Piraeus – close enough for a quick day trip from Athens. Aegina may not have the gastronomic reputation of the Cyclades or Crete, but it does have its famous pistachios, the first Greek agricultural product that earned the European Union’s Protected Designation of Origin status, in 1996. Pistachio trees arrived in Greece around 1850 and were first cultivated in Zante. A few years later, a local named Dr. N. Peroglou decided to cultivate pistachio trees in Aegina using rootstock from Syria. Over the years, local farmers grafted the Syrian trees with those from Chios, yielding a new variety that produces superb nuts.

Editor's Note: Sadly, Azteka is now closed. Being a host for the World Cup really changes the routine of any city. Just imagine, then, what it’s like when you’re the main point of entry for the country – the place everybody wants to visit, even if their national teams are scheduled to play in other cities. Tourists have been pouring into Rio over the last couple of weeks, many Mexicans are among them – and, of course, the big match between Mexico and Brazil is tomorrow. (We’ve already written about where to watch matches if you don’t have a ticket.) And if you’re a fan of Mexico’s national team, where in Rio can you go to get in the spirit for this game? Where might one go afterward to celebrate or drown one’s sorrows? Where do Mexicans in Rio go when they’re feeling homesick? Here’s our list of the best Mexican spots in town.

Anyone who has spent time in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia (or, “the ’Stans”) will have developed a deep and lasting appreciation for the cuisine of the Uighur, a Turkic people spread across the region whose homeland, Uygurstan, lies across the border in western China.

If you think you know quesadillas, think again. Since 1964, the Montoya family has been preparing a version that defies the concept, even by Mexican standards. We were told that in the Guerrero neighborhood – undeservedly considered a rough area – we would find a quesadilla so large that just one would be enough to feed two people. We consider ourselves good eaters, so we took this as a challenge.

What are the odds that after you’ve been to an exhibition of finds from a long-ago shipwreck you’ll end up having lunch at a place named Shipwreck of Angels? We’d been to the National Archaeological Museum in downtown Athens to see a roomful of haunting statues wrenched up from the deep off the tiny island of Antikythera. Though half the marble exposed to the saltwater was corroded and raw-looking, the torsos, limbs and faces that had lain under the sand for 2,000 years remained flawless and smooth. The sight of them was both moving and troubling, as if they were souls that should not have been disturbed.

In a couple of days, Brazil will be the center of the world. And over the course of the World Cup, Rio will host seven matches, including the big final. Needless to say, the city is already packed with visitors from all over the world, all of them hoping for a ticket to watch at least one of those matches at legendary Maracanã Stadium. But only a privileged few will get to see the beautiful game in person; most people will support their national teams in front of a TV. But where? Inside a boring hotel room? Of course not. Everybody will be on the streets trying to find a good place to watch the games and have a lot of fun at the same time. And in Rio, watching soccer matches at bars is a national sport that is almost as important as the futebol itself. Here’s our list of the best “watch-and-drink” bars in town.

One of China’s most successful franchise stories comes from Putian, a coastal city in Fujian with a population of about 3 million. The province is probably known best for the many who leave it, especially those who have been smuggled into the United States by snakeheads, and including domestic emigrants who move to hub cities, bringing their culinary traditions along with them.

Editor’s note: We asked jazz guitarist and composer Anthony Wilson where he heads first for food when he lands in Rio. Wilson has been a member of Diana Krall’s quartet since 2001 and has recorded with Paul McCartney, Willie Nelson, Madeleine Peyroux and Barbra Streisand, among many others. His 2011 album “Campo Belo” was recorded in São Paulo with Brazilian musicians André Mehmari, Edu Ribeiro and Guto Wirtti.

We first wrote about classic souvlaki joints a year and a half ago, and since then, those spots we recommended have only become more popular. We can’t take all the credit, however; as we mentioned in our primer, the humble dish has undergone a renaissance of sorts, and there are now all sorts of places you can find it – from hip and fashionable boîtes to traditional holes-in-the-wall. We’ve rounded up a few more that we love.