The Yaveş Gari Bodrum chapter of the international Slow Food movement organized the first Slow Cheese Festival of Turkey, which took place March 5 to 8 this year. We were lucky enough to experience it for ourselves. Local food cultures and small-scale food producers everywhere are at risk of disappearing due to the market economy and industrialized food production, and Slow Food’s various initiatives aim to help them survive and to educate the public about their cultural and gastronomic value. Dairy products in particular are under threat from immense regulation, which decreases diversity and imposes an often insupportable financial burden on small producers. Moreover, as Slow Food says, “It is not simply a question of the best milk and cheeses – our food culture and the freedom to choose what we eat are at stake.”

In the windy coastal region south of Barcelona, surrounded by the wide vineyards of Baix Penedès, entire families are decked out in winter gear and ready to eat … some salad! In the late 19th century, the word xató (pronounced “sha-TOH”) first appeared in writing in the Catalan press. Just as the name for the dish paella is borrowed from the name of the pan that is used to prepare it, xató originally referred to a sauce, but is now the name for a specific salad preparation. Practically unavoidable in the towns of Baix Penedès, Alt Penedès and Garraf (sub-regions that lie between the provinces of Barcelona and Tarragona), xató is surprisingly rare on restaurant menus in Barcelona proper, just under an hour away.

Editor’s note: We regret to report that Charmant has closed. We’ve mentioned Charmant before on Culinary Backstreets, giving it a nod for its night-owl dining opportunities (it closes at 2 a.m.). But this restaurant tastes good all day long and has something going for it that few Shanghai restaurants have: consistency. After more than seven years of loyal patronage (not to mention the restaurant's 11 years of operation since opening in 2004) and Charmant’s split from its parent company, which runs the equally successful Taiwanese chain called Bellagio, we have yet to notice a slip in quality.

In the early 1980s, Xue Shengnian was a farmer out in the village of Hongqiao. On the side, he painted houses and factories to try to make ends meet. Then he heard that the economic liberalization known as Reform and Opening was allowing citizens to start private restaurants and he thought to himself, “I know how to grow the vegetables; I bet I can cook them too.” So he opened A Shan in 1983, only the second restaurant ever in an area better known for its fields than its food.

In Athens, apart from traditional or nouvelle Greek, you can find almost any kind of cuisine you crave, but usually not under one roof. Thanks to the influx of immigrants and diaspora Greeks in the past 20 years, the city’s roster of foreign restaurants is no longer confined to Italian, French and a sprinkling of swanky Asian and Indian places with white tablecloths.

Here we are in the Bishop’s Belly, La Panxa del Bisbe, which is not the midsection of a Catalan priest, but both a restaurant and a mountain. The latter is one of the peaks of the sacred Catalan mountain of Montserrat, so-called because its shape evokes a small head over a rotund, pronounced belly. It’s frequented by numerous mountain lovers, like Xavi Codina, chef and owner of a restaurant that he named in honor of the peak. The restaurant La Panxa del Bisbe sits not in Montserrat, but in upper Gràcia, in Barcelona, very close to Codina’s home.

On one of Shanghai’s busiest shopping streets, amidst the glittering Tiffany & Co, Piaget and Apple stores, Guang Ming Cun is housed in a nondescript four-story building. Glass displays in front offer a glimpse of the braised and dried meats for sale, and around the side you can peek in to watch flaky meat pastries being flipped in a flat wok. But it’s the long lines of middle-aged shoppers patiently waiting outside the building that make Guang Ming Cun unmistakable. During Chinese New Year and Mid-Autumn Festival, these lines can reach up to five hours long.

Turkey has a rich dairying tradition, beginning thousands of years ago with nomadic tribes herding goats through the Anatolian steppes. Although Turkey is full of good cheeses that are breakfast staples, these cheeses do not have the range of flavors and textures that, say, the French have with their cheese cornucopia. Three young sheep farmers and cheese makers near the Aegean coastal town of Edremit are changing that.

As the moon starts to wane each January, people throughout China frantically snatch up train and bus tickets, eager to start the return journey to their hometown to celebrate the Lunar New Year (春节, chūnjié) with their family. This year, revelers will make an estimated 3.64 billion passenger trips during the festive season, up 200 million from the previous year. One of the major draws for migrant workers heading home is the chance to eat traditional, home-cooked meals.

If stepping foot in Brazil doesn’t make your taste buds start tingling in anticipation of kibes (bulgur wheat croquettes), esfihas (thin meat and cheese pastries), tangy molho arabe and hummus, it’s because you haven’t studied up properly on the rich history of Arab migration to Brazil – and the supremely tasty gastronomical mark it’s left on this country’s snack food culture.

Dunlop is a cook and food writer specializing in Chinese cuisine. She is the author of four books, including, most recently, Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking. She has won many awards for her work, including four James Beard awards, an IACP award, four awards from the British Guild of Food Writers and an award from the Hunan government. Her writing has been published in the Financial Times, The New Yorker, The Observer and The New York Times, and she is also a frequent pundit on Chinese food on BBC radio and television, as well as many other media outlets.

Until a few years ago, breakfast eateries were not very common in Rio. Cariocas would have breakfast at home or at a bakery, while tourists had to make do with the always-boring "Continental breakfast" offered at hotels. But thankfully, everything has changed.

As we mentioned in our piece about Rosca de Reyes, February 2 is an important date in the Mexican calendar - for Candlemas and, relatedly, for tamales. True, tamales are one of the most popular foods in Mexico City, and we can find all kinds of reasons for eating them any day of the week. But this day commemorates a ritual visit Mary made to the temple in Jerusalem with the baby Jesus. In the Catholic Church and Orthodox traditions, February 2 is the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, and at one time, the candles used in services in church throughout the year would be blessed that day, hence the name Candlemas or Candelaria. Native Mexicans would celebrate the planting this time of year with a big feast that would include tamales, and the indigenous and Christian traditions became linked.

The name of this appealing Gràcia eatery is a play on words, an amalgam of la taberna, or “tavern,” and lata, or “tin.” Owner and head chef Juanjo Martínez has dedicated his restaurant to the culture of canned food and other uncanned treasures that are linked to traditional Spanish tapeo and rituals like vermut hour, which always include preserved foods.