Dear Culinary Backstreets, I’ve noticed that a dish called “moustalevria” pops up in shops all over Athens in the autumn months. What is it, and where can I get it?

[Editor's note: We're sorry to report that La Biblioteca Gourmande has closed.] In the heart of El Raval, one of Barcelona’s most multicultural neighborhoods, lies a portal to the Catalan countryside. At La Biblioteca, which opened in 2012, the origins of the ingredients sing out clearly from each dish and plunge you into a pure culinary experience inspired by the land: the traditional farmhouses called masias, the rustic recipes of the Pyrenees, the perfume of the valleys and gardens, the modern farmers near the city and the influence on plants and herbs of the Mediterranean Sea.

Making mixiote takes some effort. On its home turf in Central Mexico, the dish is made by taking chicken, beef or mutton that is seasoned with pasilla and guajillo chili peppers as well as flavorings like thyme, cumin, bay leaves, oregano, onion and garlic, wrapping it in individual portions in maguey leaves and then slow-cooking the bundle in a pit, preferably overnight. But how about in Mexico City, a crowded metropolis where it’s not always possible to build a BBQ pit in the ground, or to obtain maguey leaves, which are both expensive and difficult to work with?

It’s a long drive from Athens to Perama, the westernmost terminal of the port town of Piraeus, and the payoff is, at first sight, minimal. To the left is the port’s industrial zone – a forest of blue and orange cranes that tower over the sea. To the right is a stretch of industrial wasteland: old electricity plants, derelict factories, walls with enormous graffiti celebrating Piraeus’s very successful team, Olympiacos, and then a jumble of recently built high-rise buildings on a rocky hill. First populated in the 1920s by immigrants from Asia Minor, Istanbul and the Pontus (Black Sea) region, this suburb of Piraeus now has about 25,000 residents, most of whose livelihoods depend on the dockyards that have been here since the 1930s. Perama remains a proud, working-class neighborhood, and it is no accident that the early Greek hip-hop of the ’90s and the so-called Low Bap hip-hop genre and movement started here.

Editor’s note: This is the fourth installment of “Spring (Food) Break 2013,” featuring our favorite foods of the spring season in each city Culinary Backstreets covers. This year’s Nevruz celebration, an ancient welcoming of spring, may be remembered for its political significance in which a peace deal was struck between Turkish leaders and Kurdish rebels. But once the shoulder-shrugging, line-dancing, fire-jumping and ululating are over, the real bounty of the season will continue to be celebrated all over Turkey and in many Istanbul restaurants, from the chic to the shabby.

Editor’s note: Here at Culinary Backstreets, we eagerly await the coming of spring each year, not just for the nicer weather but also because some of our favorite foods and dishes are at their best – or indeed, are only available – for a short period during this season. This post from Athens is the first installment of “Spring (Food) Break 2013,” a weeklong celebration of our favorite springtime eats. Stay tuned for dispatches from all of the Culinary Backstreets cities. Athens is probably at its prettiest in springtime, especially in April and May.

As the legend goes, a 19th-century Catalan farmer was out experimenting in his fields when he came up with a new kind of longer, juicier green onion, the calçot. In creating the onion, the farmer produced much more than a new vegetable; he also paved the way for the rise of an idiosyncratic, and distinctly Catalan, cultural event.

We are unabashedly fanatical in our love of hamsi, or anchovies, a late fall/wintertime specialty whose arrival we eagerly await each year in Istanbul, where the tiny fish are most commonly served pan-fried, grilled or in pilaf. But as any hamsi aficionado knows, for the best anchovy-eating in Turkey one must go directly to their source: the country’s Black Sea coastline, where the catch is brought in.

Dear Culinary Backstreets, I’ll be in Spain during the December holidays and I’m wondering if Barcelonans eat any special meal on Christmas? If so, what is it and where in the city could I try it?

Mushroom hunting has an irresistible, magical pull. Composer John Cage, an avid mushroom collector, found them an integral part of his creative process, once writing: “Much can be learned about music by devoting oneself to the mushroom.” Every fall, thousands of Catalans likewise find themselves under the mushroom’s spell, following the elusive fungus’s silent melody into the woods, a rustic wicker basket in one hand and – more and more these days – a GPS-enabled smartphone in the other.

The arrival of fall in Istanbul usually means one thing for us: hamsi season is about to begin. Hamsi, of course, are the minuscule fish (Black Sea anchovies) that Istanbulites are mad about, and the coming of fall and the cooling of the waters of the Black Sea mark the beginning of the best time of the year to eat the little suckers. In honor of hamsi season, we offer a list of six of our favorite places to try these tiny fish.

The arrival of fall always finds us heading instinctively, like salmon swimming towards their ancestral headwaters, to the Balık Pazarı, Beyoğlu’s historic fish market. Autumn is quince season in Turkey and that means the appearance – for a limited time only – of one of our favorite desserts, ayva tatlısı (literally meaning “quince dessert,” although “quince in syrup” might be more accurate). Nestled in the fish market is Sakarya Tatlıcısı, a pastry and sweets shop with old-world charm that is one of our top stops for this dessert. The apple-like quince is one of those complicated, mysterious fruits that take on a new life when cooked. Raw, quinces are often astringent and inedible.