Dear Culinary Backstreets, I keep hearing buzz about “yangmei” season in Shanghai. What’s all the fuss about this fruit? What’s in a name? Shakespeare could just as easily have written, “A yángméi (杨梅) by any other name would taste as sweet.” This little red Asian fruit has a plethora of monikers: Myrica rubra, Chinese bayberry, yamamomo, Japanese bayberry, red bayberry and waxberry. But a decade ago, the sweet and sour fruit was rebranded as the yumberry in the United States (where it is sold in juice and powder form, but not fresh, due to an import ban on the live fruit) to stand out from other exotic “superfoods.”

Dear Culinary Backstreets, I’m on my way to Tokyo in the next few weeks and wanted to enjoy the cherry blossoms at a typical hanami celebration. Where can I find such a celebration, and what kind of food can I expect and where can I find one? We can fully understand why you want to partake of a hanami, or cherry blossom viewing party, as most Japanese people do. The ritual has been around for over a thousand years in Japan. Cherry blossoms – sakura – will bloom in lavish displays of wonderful pink magic all over Japan, starting on the southern island of Kyushu at the end of March and moving north to Hokkaido by the end of May.

Dear Culinary Backstreets, I’ve heard about “wet markets,” but what are they exactly? And where can I find the best wet markets in Shanghai? Stocked with all the fresh produce and live seafood that hungry Shanghai residents could ever cook up, wet markets are an essential alternative to the brand-name supermarkets vying for their slice of the market share of the planet’s largest population. These markets are so named because the floor tends to be wet, thanks to the live fish flopping around and the vendors’ habit of throwing water on the ground to keep the area clean. They are, however, under constant pressure from the central government’s drive to urbanize the population and modernize facilities, which has led to the steady destruction of the more traditional ones.

Dear Culinary Backstreets, Should I be concerned about MSG when I eat in Shanghai? The addition of MSG to Chinese food has been dividing diners for decades now, yet it appears that most people still don’t really know why they’re trying to avoid the stuff, or if they should even be concerned. We’re here to clear that up, once and for all.

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is all about balancing your yin and yang, a system that involves dietary practices as well as exercise, massage, acupuncture and herbal medicine. Winter is considered a “yin” season, meaning that it is cold and damp, and you should therefore eat warming, or “yang,” foods to balance out the external conditions.

Dear Culinary Backstreets,I am very confused regarding drinking over in Athens. Do Greeks even drink ouzo anymore? If so, when do they drink it? Also, my friends have told me something called “tsipouro” is more popular these days – what’s that drink all about?

Dear Culinary Backstreets,My wife and I love to cook at home and for our friends, and we would love to learn more about Spanish cuisine on our next trip to Barcelona so that we can recreate our favorite meals when we return home. Where can we take English-language cooking classes in the city?

Dear Culinary Backstreets,I am a practicing Muslim and have a hard time finding halal food in Shanghai. Do you have any recommendations? Eating halal is difficult in a country whose cuisine considers pork its staple meat. Pork consumption in China - the largest consumer of the meat globally - reached record levels last year, averaging 86 pounds per capita. Since 2007, the government has operated “strategic pork reserves,” which include underground bunkers of frozen pork and live pig farms, to help regulate porcine inflation. If you pop into a wet market, you’ll see rows of pork vendors selling everything from cutlets to brains, but typically only one butcher filleting beef and lamb. Above that stall, you’ll inevitably find Arabic script and the characters: 清真 (qīngzhēn, or “halal”).

Dear Culinary Backstreets,We are traveling with a group of friends to Barcelona. A few of us are vegetarians, and we all love good food. I know Barcelona is a meat – and particularly pork – lover’s paradise, but can you recommend any vegetarian-friendly restaurants? Is it possible to enjoy tapas and Spanish cuisine without meat or fish?

Dear Culinary Backstreets, I just moved to Shanghai, and while I’m looking forward to investigating all the street food options, I’d love to be able to make dinner at home too and would like to get into Chinese cooking. Where’s the best place to stock up my new kitchen?

Dear Culinary Backstreets, My husband and I are headed to Rio for vacation and neither of us eats meat or fish. Brazil sounds like a paradise for the carnivorous, but what’s a vegetarian to do?

Dear Culinary Backstreets,I often have to dine with Chinese coworkers at banquets and want to make sure I am not offending anyone. Are there certain dining customs I should adhere to? China’s dining etiquette is more flexible and forgiving than that of other Asian cultures – like Japan, for instance – but there are a few rules you should know. Most are nonverbal cues that demonstrate respect, especially at work or government banquets.

Dear Culinary Backstreets, My family is planning a trip to Shanghai. We want to dine like the locals but also make sure our little ones get their fill. Do you have any recommendations?

Dear Culinary Backstreets, I keep hearing about something in Chinese cuisine called “stinky tofu.” Does it really smell that bad to earn such an offensive moniker?

Dear Culinary Backstreets, I hear that prices in Rio are Olympic-sized. How can I eat the best the city has to offer, without spending an arm and a leg? It’s true that prices in Rio aren’t what they used to be. As a recent New York Times article notes, Brazilians pay extremely high prices (particularly relative to wages) for just about everything from food to automobiles, due to both high inflation and a tax system that’s skewed in favor of consumption taxes. The high prices hurt both consumers and businesses. As NPR reported, one Italian restaurant in Sao Paulo recently went as far as taking tomatoes off its menu because the cost had shot up so much. Meanwhile, an influx of money – from the construction boom ahead of the upcoming 2014 World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympics and from the growing oil and gas sector developing off Rio’s coast – is driving up prices even further. Indeed, what’s most surprising about Rio’s priciest locales is how oversized the lines to get into them are.