Barcelona’s urban sprawl makes it easy to forget that the city is adjacent to two fertile regions to the north and south, El Maresme and El Baix Llobregat, which provide numerous hyperlocal culinary treasures throughout the year. In spring as in other seasons, these treasures appear at markets and restaurants, their origins proudly displayed, sometimes even with the names of the specific villages that they come from. The coast and gently sloping mountains of El Maresme are home to numerous villages, three natural parks and beaches. Unsurprisingly, there’s an abundance of seafood here, including gamba de Arenys (Arenys prawns), scampi (escamarlans in Catalan, cigalas in Spanish) and little Mediterranean sand eels (sonsos in Catalan).

In 2017, Shanghai’s longest-running open-air market at Tangjiawan Lu, which had provided the neighborhood with fresh produce, fish, and seasonal foodstuffs for almost 115 years, shuttered its doors. The market and much of the area around the Laoximen metro station were some of the last historical (albeit run-down) structures in an otherwise central area full of expensive new residences. Construction has already begun on the entire city block’s worth of high-rises being built in its place, and the surrounding blocks – like many of Shanghai’s backstreets – are on notice, as the wrecking balls and construction crews continue to reshape the urban landscape at an incredibly fast rate.

Up in Barcelona’s hills, in the El Coll neighborhood, where the city ends and the sky is cut by the spiky shapes of the pine trees in Collserola Park, Agreste de Fabio & Roser is sprouting up. Emphasizing sustainability and healthy eating, the restaurant is creating delicious dishes that merge Catalan and Italian traditions with contemporary flourishes. Room manager Roser Asensi and her partner, chef Fabio Gambirasi, created this project (the name means “bad weed” in Spanish) less than a year ago and people are already singing their praises. On a recent visit, we could hear words of admiration from different guests flying around the room over the course of our meal.

From Rio to Venice, from Cologne to New Orleans and from Patras to towns all over Greece, Catholics and Orthodox (along with believers and nonbelievers of every description) celebrate Carnival – the three weeks preceding Lent – with parades, masquerades, pranks, Dionysian revels and Lucullan feasts focusing on roasted meats. After all, the word “carnival” is thought to have come from the Italian carne levare or “abstain from meat” – which is also the meaning of the Greek Apokreas – and heralded a time when many religions prohibited consuming flesh during the sacred fast before Easter.

When Buket Ulukut first moved from Istanbul to a rural plot of land in the foothills of the Taurus Mountains in southern Turkey, she was leading a double life. “I’d be taking calls from clients in Europe while out amidst the rows of peppers and eggplants, hoping they didn’t hear the rooster crowing in the background,” says Ulukut, who worked in the textile industry before establishing Tangala Goat Farm in Muğla’s serene Yaka village. Since Ulukut settled in the area in 2008, her herd has grown from two goats to more than 50, producing milk that is made on-site into artisan cheeses sold throughout Turkey. Over the same decade, the number of Turks swapping the city for the countryside has also multiplied, driven by rising urban stresses and an increasingly stifling political climate.

One day, or so the story goes, a group of tourists asked an elderly priest in Naples which churches were really worth visiting. The priest replied, “There are many churches, but have you tried the spaghetti with clams?” Even a man of God recognizes the sacred bond established between two people sharing a plate of spaghetti with clams in a Neapolitan trattoria. So we consider it our moral duty to advise you how to order your spaghetti with clams and where to eat it.

Since its name derives from the Turkish word peynir (cheese), it’s no surprise that Athens’ best peinirli (πεϊνιρλί, “with cheese”), a boat-shaped flatbread similar to pide in Turkey and khachapuri in Georgia, is usually found at old, specialized shops or eateries owned by families who originally came from Asia Minor or Pontus, the Greek name for the southern coast of the Black Sea, in the early 20th century. So when Spyros, the owner of Peinirli Ionias in Ambelokipoi, one of the most popular peinirli takeaways in downtown Athens, casually mentions that he originally hails from the Ionian island of Corfu – nowhere near Asia Minor, another name for Turkey’s Anatolia region – we are left scratching our heads. Sensing our confusion, he quickly adds that he learned the art of peinirli-making directly from the source, so to speak: his father- and mother-in-law, who both emigrated to Athens as part of the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey.

The day two airliners flew into the World Trade Center, we were in Lagodekhi, an east Georgian village on the border with Azerbaijan. We had been in a total daze trying to comprehend the scope of the tragedy from a village halfway around the world where our hosts were offering solace through the bottle. Zaur, a neighbor, showed up the morning of the twelfth with a Borjomi mineral water bottle of his chacha and made breakfast toasts to the victims of New York, to peace, to bloody revenge and so on. Needless to say, we were well under the influence by lunch time and ended up arm-in-arm at a local stolovaya (canteen) with a platter of frankfurters and bread before Zaur put us in a minibus home.

“Two kilos five liraaa! Two kilos five liraaa!” bellowed a young and exuberant vendor of tomatoes to the ongoing stream of frugal-minded shoppers making their way through the snaking Tarlabaşı Sunday Market. Hundreds of sellers of fresh produce, dairy, seafood, kitchenware, clothing, smuggled tobacco, jewelry, fresh baked goods and numerous other items set up side by side in the central Istanbul quarter of Tarlabaşı every Sunday, weaving an extended path down a backstreet that incorporates both unbridled chaos and strict organization. It is just one of hundreds of similar weekly semt pazarları, the beloved Istanbul neighborhood bazaars that offer some of the cheapest prices on the widest variety of goods the city has to offer, while at the same time serving as a critical element in maintaining the vitality of Istanbul neighborhood life.

Scan almost any menu in Lisbon and you’re bound to find bacalhau (salt cod) in some form. That should come as no surprise: Lisboetas have long had a taste for this preserved fish, which can be found in a number of traditional dishes. Yet despite being seemingly everywhere, there are very few spots that focus exclusively on bacalhau. A Casa do Bacalhau, as its name suggests, is one of them, using salt cod in almost everything it serves except dessert. Open since 2000 in the Beato neighborhood, the restaurant is housed inside the old stables of the Duques de Lafões palace, which was built after the 1755 earthquake.

There’s a saying in Naples: “Anything fried is good, even the soles of shoes.” You may laugh, but we wholeheartedly agree ¬¬– frying may have a bad rap in some parts of the world, but it can add a richness and flavor to any type of food (and, perhaps, even footwear). Think of a dull, bland zucchini or eggplant; when fried right, it becomes a pleasure. We normally get our fried fix by ordering a cuoppo, a paper cone filled with crispy morsels. This symbol of Neapolitan fried street food is our typical mid-morning snack – while going about our morning errands, we munch on the small bites of fried deliciousness that are swaddled in the plain brown paper.

The steam table is an often misunderstood – even maligned – concept. For those unfortunate souls who know only a lackluster corner deli, it's a repository of “food that’s been sitting around all day.” A restaurant inspector might insist on stricter criteria – something to the effect, perhaps, of maintaining already-cooked foods at safe holding temperatures by displaying them in pans above a bath of hot water. For us, particularly in the case of a praiseworthy steam table, it's "a picture menu in three dimensions.” A poetic definition, perhaps, but to us it rings true. Some displays of prepared food, we’ll agree, are not steam tables. They include the multitude of bins filled with ingredients waiting to be wedded in a Sichuan dry pot; the disposable trays, resting on wire racks above (tiny) flames, at a monthly Indonesian bazaar; or the bounty of pork and potatoes at any number of Ecuadorian street carts.

It has been said that when Greeks want a good meal, they stay at home, and that when they go out, having fun is the object, the food a secondary concern. But that was in the past. As diners have become more sophisticated and demanding, restaurants’ and tavernas’ standards have been rising and a mediocre meal is hard to find. But the craving for home cooking, for those laborious, slow-simmered soups, stews, and casseroles that mothers and grandmothers used to devote their days to creating still persists. And the old-fashioned mageirio or mageriko is an institution that satisfies this urge.

Years ago, when it was a booming industrial center, Poblenou saw thousands of workers stream in every day to toil away at one of several factories in the neighborhood. Hearty fare was required to keep them going – sure, taste mattered, but sustenance was the most pressing concern. Poblenou may no longer be filled with factories, but there are still plenty of people who spend their weekdays in the area, working at one of the many start-ups, tech companies or communications firms that have set up shop in their place. When it comes to lunch, these 21st-century workers want the same thing that those who came before them did: lunches that fill their stomachs and satisfy their taste buds without leaving a big hole in their pockets.