When the Phocaeans founded Marseille in 6th century B.C., these ancient Greek explorers launched France’s long history with wine production and consumption. In the 1930s, southern France became famous for another kind of grape juice. In the southwestern town of Moissac, home of the Chasselas grape, Dr. Armand Rouanet touted the amazing health benefits of grape-seeds at his uvarium. At this first-of-its-kind center for grape-based therapies (uva is the Latin root for grape), people would consume a grape-only diet (2-6 pounds a day) to heal everything from cellulite to constipation. Ironically, this grape cleanse was ideal for detoxifying the liver, the organ most damaged by wine. This temple of grape glorification was such a success that dozens of stations uvales sprouted across the south of France to peddle the just-pressed grape juice alongside other fresh-squeezed fruit.

It’s finally hot in Mexico City. We’re smack dab in the middle of that two-month window between March and April that brings a dry, summer heat before the snow has even started to melt in some northern climates. The city is steaming, and chilangos are hunting down their favorite cool foods and the ubiquitous agua frescas sold in outdoor markets. We’re scouring the market, too, in search of our favorite hot weather treat, a cold chicozapote. A palm-sized oval with a rough brown exterior and an interior similar to a cooked pear in consistency, the chicozapote is not a fruit you find outside of many tropical or sub-tropical climates. Called a different name in almost every Caribbean and Central American country, this fruit and its cousins trail down the continent.

At any Portuguese pastelaria, the pastel de nata, Portugal’s famous custard tart, is only the tip of the iceberg. Lisbon, especially, is home to a host of bakeries both traditional and innovative, and a wide selection of sweet treats you can’t leave without trying. From lesser-known convent sweets like the elaborate ovos moles to Brazilian baked goods to chocolate made by master chocolatiers, there’s something for every sweet tooth in this city. Culinary Backstreet has you covered: Our local guides have handpicked the absolute best desserts in town, from pastel de nata and beyond.

Often overshadowed by the ubiquity, convenience, and utmost deliciousness of the classic pizza – in this case, specifically the street version called pizza a portafoglio (folding pizza) – is another typical Neapolitan street food whose history is linked to the royal family: the parigina. Commonly sold, already cut into generous rectangular portions, found in bakeries, simple eateries, and deli shops, this is a different take on the Neapolitan savory tradition. The parigina tantalizingly combines various layers of flavors and textures: a variably thick leavened dough at the base, a well-calibrated filling of tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, and baked ham in the middle, and a thin and flaky puff pastry to cover it all.

For a large part of the world, eating cold noodles is one of the best ways to beat the sweltering heat of the summer, whether the strands are served with a dipping sauce or sitting in an ice cold broth. The history of cold noodles may not be as well studied as the history of the noodle itself, but we can imagine people have been eating cold noodles for as long as noodles have been around when the weather warms up. Somen is believed to be the oldest Japanese noodle (circa the 700s) and is typically served cold with a dipping sauce. In Korea, a cold noodle soup called naengmyeon has been around since the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1897).

When you walk into Sammy’s Food Service & Deli at lunchtime, it might look like you’ve entered the scene of an emergency. The atmosphere is buzzing as a collection of police officers, firemen, and military personnel fill the modestly-sized dining area. “There are post office workers, too!” added Sammy Schloegel, who has co-owned this Gentilly eatery with his wife, Gina, since the early 1990s. “We give all government employees twenty percent off,” he laughed, “so that probably helps bring them in.”

Matosinhos, it could be said, has seen better times. In its heyday, the semi-industrial-feeling port city just north of Porto was once home to 54 fish canneries. Today, only two remain. Along the city’s wide, empty-feeling streets, some of the city’s former factories and their graceful Art Nouveau facades have been reappropriated as other businesses – we saw more than one startup – while in many cases, they have simply been abandoned. But at Pinhais, one of those remaining canneries, it feels like little has changed. As it’s done since 1920, having weathered both good and bad times in Matosinhos, the company is producing some of the best tinned seafood in Portugal. Before World War II, there were 152 fish canneries in Portugal. But in the 1960s, advances in refrigeration led to a crash in tinned seafood production (for more on the history of Iberian tinned seafood, see our previous article about conservas in Galicia, Spain).

There was a time in Istanbul when we had to go to a small international bus station in the Aksaray neighborhood to find Georgian food. There were a few different eateries in the area, but usually what brought us there was a shabby hole-in-the-wall up a flight of rickety stairs in a corner of the station, which generally catered to Georgians about to embark on a two-day bus trip back to their country. The food was decent, the service was surly at best, the atmosphere was shady (we and others had our phones stolen by other customers in the middle of dinner) but above all, they sold chacha,the flagship Georgian spirit distilled from the remnants of grapes used for wine.

Marseille resembles an amphitheater – fitting for a city founded by the ancient Greeks. Encircled by the limestone cliffs of Calanques National Park, the green Garlaban hills and the mountainous Massif de l’Étoile, the port city is open wide to the Mediterranean with its back to the rest of France. This topography makes the city less French, more global, and intrinsically linked to the sea. Profoundly shaped by the goods, people, and cultures that have washed up on its shores for over 2,600 years, the Mare Nostrum has always taken center stage in Marseille. Two villages captain each end of the city’s 26 kilometer, semi-circular coastline. Though both fishing villages evoke yesteryear charm, they differ in look and feel. The northern quartier of L’Estaque retains the working-class ethos of its industrial past and is famous for snack shacks selling fried delights.

Orzo, which in Greek is called kritharaki (or manestra), is a rice-shaped pasta that is particularly popular in Greek and Italian kitchens. Interestingly, its name both in Italian and Greek means barley, which would once have been the most commonly used grain in this region of the Mediterranean. Research suggests that this kind of pasta was a substitute for rice, which as late as the 1960s was relatively expensive and hard to get. Orzo is used in traditional recipes, such as giouvetsi, where it is baked with meat, poultry, or seafood. Its use is very versatile; it can be used in soups and salads, while these days in contemporary Greek restaurants, it is often used instead of rice for dishes like kritharoto, which resembles risotto.

To reach our evening’s destination, we amble our way down Ura Shibuya-dōri (which translates to “Shibuya backstreet”) and pass by a litany of small eateries and charming hole-in-the-wall bars. This quaint neighborhood is just off the main drag, tucked in behind the more mainstream domain of tourist restaurants and the accompanying crowds. Here the streets are filled with stylish people in their twenties to thirties, young families, and salary men looking for a more suburban life beyond the hustle and bustle of Shibuya. As we pass by we notice a mix of great independent locales, from cheap Chinese eateries to fancy tuna restaurants to funky izakayas filled with locals.

n 2005, José Luís Díaz was thinking about retiring after working for many years in great local restaurants. He wanted to leave behind the stress of big kitchens, but still to cook the recipes that he loved with a different rhythm and with more time and care. And so he opened Sense Pressa – an antidote to the pressures and stresses of modern life. Sense Pressa (literally “Unhurried”) is a cozy, modest eatery. The narrow entry adjoins a bar that is flanked by more than 300 wine bottles and leads into a wider room appointed with round tables. The ambiance walks the line between elegant and homey, serene and lively. Each night, Díaz and his team cook around 25 covers (by reservation only) in a single, leisurely seating.

Royaume de la Chantilly’s renowned logo is featured prominently above the entrance, in bright red lettering, flanked by a blue crown and the royal emblem, the fleur-de-lis. Founded in 1917, Royaume de la Chantilly, (“Kingdom of Chantilly”) is certainly considered royalty by the Marseillais when it comes to their signature specialty: fabulously fluffy, perfectly sugared homemade whipped cream. Over 100 years ago, Joseph Ganteaume opened the first store on rue Longue des Capucins not far from the old port. Before refrigeration, people would go to what was then called the BOF, meaning beurre, œufs, fromage (“butter, eggs, cheese”) on a daily basis to purchase dairy products.

Çukur Meyhane, a small, slightly shabby basement meyhane in Beyoğlu’s Galatasaray area, certainly does not look like the kind of place with any shining stars on the menu. On one of our very first visits, the floor seemed to be covered in a mixture of sawdust, table scraps and some cigarette ash. The tiny open kitchen occupies one corner, while the VIP table – where a group of old-timers can be found watching horse races on TV, scratching at racing forms, cursing and cheering – takes up a slightly larger area. A good bit of the other half of the room is home to a giant ornamental wooden beer barrel.

The area around Mis (meaning “Pleasant-Smelling”), Kurabiye (“Cookie”) and Süslü Saksı (“Fancy Flowerpot”) Streets is as eclectic and appealing as these monikers would suggest, at least as far as we're concerned. This corner in the backstreets of Istanbul's Beyoğlu district is home to a trifecta of our favorite local haunts: Müşterek, its sister meyhane, Meclis, and a bar on the floor above, called Marlen. It’s also an area that has maintained the gritty yet lively character of the city's longtime entertainment hub in spite of profound changes that have threatened to strip it of that title.