It’s the end of an era for Tokyo’s Tsukiji Market. Saturday, October 6, will be the last day of operation for the world’s largest fish market, after which it will relocate two kilometers east to a new site on the manmade island of Toyosu. The move has been in the works for years (it was first announced way back in 2001), but with 2020 Olympic deadlines looming (the vacant site was a promised piece of infrastructure in the capital city’s bid to host), “Tokyo’s Kitchen” will be closing an 83-year chapter. As Tsukiji’s main wholesale marketplace is one of Tokyo’s few extant pre-World War II structures, darn near anyone you ask is sad to see it go. Tsukiji has a sense of place stronger than anywhere else in Tokyo, but ironically, the inner market has accumulated all of its site-specific charm in direct proportion to its decay.

A guest arriving at a Greek home should expect an overwhelming array of traditional welcoming treats that will be presented upon their arrival, from coffee and cookies, to cakes, homemade liqueurs, loukoumi and more. But there’s one sweet something that has long been linked with hospitality and welcoming in any proper, traditional Greek home: glyko tou koutaliou, or “spoon sweet,” a type of fruit preserve whose roots go way back to ancient times. For centuries, preservation was a necessary part of the harvest – it was the only way to make excess fresh fruits and vegetables last for as long as possible.

With almost 6,000 kilometers of coast (5,978 to be exact), Spain is the world’s second largest consumer of fish and seafood per resident (the first being, no surprise, Japan). Bathed by the cold Atlantic on one side and the warmer Mediterranean on the other, the country harbors a wide variety of habitats that have made it easy to source many different species of marisco (seafood) and fish. While these fruits of the sea are available at all kinds of Spanish restaurants and bars, the best way to guarantee a magnificent seafood feast is to go to a proper marisquería. A perfect example is La Barca del Pescador.

When we embarked on the ferryboat to the South Aegean island of Kea at Lavrio, about an hour’s drive from Athens, we didn’t see any of the tourists that typically fill ferries going to the Cyclades in summer. Traveling with the summer winds just an hour further, we seemed to slip through an invisible door into a world at once very close but far away in ethos. Many wealthy denizens of Attica, the peninsula that encompasses Athens, have built their summer homes here in a style that deviates from the famous blue-and-white of the Cyclades, incorporating local stones and looking somehow traditional and modern at the same time, blending into the local landscape. A big aspect of this landscape – yet another surprise, the greenness of the island – is the thousands of trees that make up the ancient oak forest carpeting Kea, whose acorns are undergoing a felicitous revival as a staple of local economic – and even culinary – life.

Way south of the pure, unadulterated hustle and bustle of the historic center, east of refined and residential San Ángel, and northwest of Xochimilco and its colorful canals lies Coyoacán, a neighborhood unlike any other in the megalopolis that is Mexico City. Once an artsy hangout for the movers and shakers of the day, like Frida Kahlo and her husband Diego Rivera, as well as a refuge for exiled Communists like Leon Trotsky (all three have house museums dedicated to their honor in the barrio), Coyoacán is now a popular tourist hangout. However, you don’t have to scratch far beneath the surface to find remnants of Coyoacán’s traditional, if somewhat romanticized, past.

Around 30 people crowd into a small bar in a quiet neighborhood in Lisbon for a film screening. It’s a Wednesday night, but the place, called Valsa, is full, despite the fact that it’s in a peripheral residential zone. “Valsa” is the Brazilian translation of “waltz”; the Mittel-European folk dance that arrived to Brazil via Portugal in 1808. Danced in the elite salões of Rio de Janeiro, the term is now back on this side of the Atlantic, thanks to this tiny Brazilian-run association with one of the busiest cultural programs in the city.

“The moment we were born, the moment we entered the world, so many people were happy. Our mothers, fathers, relatives; the doctor who delivered us, the nurses that helped; maybe some guys hanging out with our fathers said ‘Cheers!’ or ‘Congratulations!’ and patted our dads on the back. So many people and we don’t even know their names, who they were. Let’s drink to all those people who were happy that we were born – that with this toast we can say ‘thank you’ to them.” The year was 2001, and I had just crossed the border from Turkey into Georgia with my partner, Justyna. The Batumi train to Tbilisi had been roasting under the blistering June sun all day. Boarding with heavy backpacks, we were instantly pummeled with the grim reality that the windows of these Soviet-born wagons were all sealed shut; save for one in the middle, just big enough for three heads to poke out, panting for air.

The relative abundance of heritage architecture and mixed zoning in the former French Concession neighborhood (technically the Xuhui district) has left a legacy of nooks and crannies where a number of mom-and-pop noodle shops are able to withstand the test of time and pressures of a fast-changing economy. Luckily, enough noodle lovers are still craving the classics and will queue up to support their favorite local haunts. Our top five picks can get crowded, but if you avoid the main lunch rush from noon to 1 p.m., you shouldn’t have to fight (too hard) for a seat.

We counted ourselves among the cogniscenti on our first visit to Mangal Kebab, a decade ago, when we passed up pizza in favor of pide (Pea-day). Sharing the same section of the menu and baked in the same oven, but elongated rather than round, the Turkish flatbread suggested a well-laden canoe, until it was sliced for portage from the kitchen, with a chewy crust that curled around seasoned ground lamb. Over the years we’d also become acquainted with the kebabs, and the mangal – the grill, just behind the counter, that gave the restaurant its name. Mangal Kebab is a come-as-you-are neighborhood restaurant that seems easy to get to know, even though we don’t know the language.

There has always been a bit of a rivalry between the two main cities of Portugal, Lisbon and Porto, which is well illustrated by an old running joke among some tripeiros (the name given to the people of Porto): whenever someone asks what is the best thing about Lisbon they will reply, “The highway sign that says ‘Porto.’” But it’s a healthy rivalry for the most part – football aside. Lisboetas, Lisbon locals, in general even tend to recognize that the food might actually be better in Porto and its surroundings, especially traditional dishes. While Porto does not benefit from the same multicultural influences that helped shape Lisbon’s restaurant scene, it is home to some very talented cooks with a knack for doing so much with so little.

We are so heartbroken to report the passing of Nunu Gachechiladze, fondly known as our “Pickle Queen” at Tbilisi’s Deserter’s Bazaar. We first met Nunu two years ago, while mapping out our market walk with Justyna Mielnikiewicz. In our decade and a half of life together in Georgia, Justyna, a Polish native and pickle expert by default, had never been impressed with local pickled cucumbers, finding them too salty, too mushy or simply bland. Some sort of cosmic force directed us to Nunu. How else to explain that out of all the pickle makers at the bazaar, we were drawn deep into a hidden corner of the labyrinthine market to where Nunu stood behind stacks of her creations?

We met Don Tirso in the center of Santa Ana Tlacotenco, one of 12 villages in Milpa Alta, Mexico City’s southernmost delegation, on a sunny and cool morning. The road from village to village in Milpa Alta snakes through fields and around ancient volcanoes, slowly climbing up the mountains that overlook the beast of a city to which it formally belongs. We take a truck to his property, part of a farming cooperative ceded to the campesinos (farmers) following Mexico’s decade-long revolution that ended in 1920, which focused heavily on agrarian reform. In his village, the city’s only rural area covered with forests and farms, his generation of elders is the one that mostly carries the torch of their direct connection to the Aztec past.

As the food scene in Barcelona continues to change at a rapid clip, with a constant stream of closings and openings, the city’s bodegas are an excellent example of what can be saved. These are businesses that have been updated again and again, sometimes over the course of a century, in order to preserve an essence and an identity that nobody – not now nor back then – wants to lose. La Moderna, a tapas bar and bulk-wine shop on Carrer d’Enric Granados in the Eixample Esquerra (Left Eixample) neighborhood, is a good example of this preservation model. Established in 1937, the bodega has survived just about everything, including the Spanish Civil War (1936-39).

Don’t tell it to French winemakers, but in 2015, the Chinese wine industry hit a major milestone by narrowly surpassing France in land dedicated to vineyards. With 7,990 square kilometers of grape-growing land concentrated mostly in China’s north-central and northwestern regions, the country now ranks second only to Spain and holds almost 11 percent of the world’s vineyards by land area. Most experts estimate that the vast majority of these vineyards grow grapes for the table, not wine, but the statistic follows the trend of wine’s growing popularity in the Middle Kingdom. And China is now among the top 10 wine-producing countries in the world.

Last year, Casa de Goa, celebrated its 30th anniversary in Lisbon. Located in Alcântara, it’s a cultural hub for Goans in Lisbon, keeping both traditions and memories alive. Besides a library and museum, there’s a restaurant – currently closed but soon to re-open – and regular events, conferences, exhibitions, games, social gatherings and food workshops. Casa de Goa is particularly active in promoting traditional Goan music and dance: it hosts a folk dance group called Ekvat and the music group Gâmat. Jerónimo Aráujo e Silva is the musical director and also the composer of some of the original songs.