Bars, cafés, taverns and restaurants have historically functioned as meeting spots for all kinds of urban communities, from intellectuals to politicians and artists – revolutions have even been planned around the table. Nowadays in Barcelona, another community, one that has flourished in numerous cities around the world, has started gathering in these types of venues: cyclists. The number of cyclists in Barcelona has increased some 30 percent in recent years, according to the City Council – in 2017 alone, 38 percent of residents moved around the city on two wheels. With more than 230 km of cycling lanes and a fleet of 7,000 brand new municipal bikes, the city is still adjusting to coexisting with so many bikes and riders.

At Culinary Backstreets, we tend to opt for tradition over trendy, street over chic. We delve into a city’s blind spots when it comes to local favorites. Taking that approach makes it too easy to dismiss new spots out of hand. So, if it weren’t for our friend Liz hounding us for months about a newish “falafel place” near her house, we almost certainly would not have thought about visiting it. But that’s the great thing about friends – they take us out of our routine and generally bring us to unexpected places, as was the case with Kebab Nation.

At 10 a.m., Juan Trenado, head of cheese production at Finca Subaida, and his team had already been toiling for several hours. They moved efficiently through each step of the artisanal process, expertly crafting block after block of the famous Queso de Mahón on the Mediterranean island of Menorca. “By law” – Mahón has a protected designation of origin (D.O.P.) – “the cheese could include a little sheep’s milk, but ours doesn’t,” Trenado told us, as he directed a gushing stream of watery cheese curds from a wide hose into a big, waist-high stainless steel vat. Slowly, the vat filled nearly to the brim, and Trenado, along with Mònica Mercadal, Head of Cheese Maturation, and Ramon Alonso, a new hire, carefully stirred the curds, breaking them into small chickpea-sized pieces.

In the early 18th century, before there was the Spinning Jenny, the Cotton Gin and the steam engine, a new machine was making waves in Gragnano, the grain capital of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies. It was the torchio, the pasta extruder. And it would radically and permanently change the diet of Italy. Just beyond Naples, the ancient Roman town of Gragnano, whose very name indicates an abundance of grain, was tentatively beginning to mechanize the production of dried pasta, theretofore a luxurious oddity throughout the Italian peninsula. Local entrepreneurs gradually capitalized on what their forebearers had known for several millennia – not only was Gragnano ideally situated due to its storied cultivation of durum wheat and semolina, but it also offered access to thirty water mills. Perhaps even more curiously Gragnano offered something very rare at the time: the perfect air for drying pasta.

There is a day in February when we raise our noses to the sky like dogs and catch the first teasing wisps of spring. Our eyes widen, we nod and chime with giddy grins, “It’s coming.” Then the weather turns with a cold snap or even snow and we forget all about spring until one day in mid-March we wake up, pour a coffee, peer out the window and cry out, “Whoa, look!” jabbing our forefingers towards our tkemali tree and its little white flowers that bloomed overnight; the first blossoms of the year. No fruit says springtime greater than tkemali, which is a cherry plum (prunus cerasifera) harvested young, when it is exquisitely sour. Together with fresh tarragon, it is the basis of the mandatory Easter dish, chakapuli. People are stocked with preserved sour plums just in case Easter falls too early on the calendar.

Sichuan cuisine is famous for its mouth-numbing, spicy flavors, but what many people don’t know is that the provincial cuisine is subdivided into several specialty subregional cuisines. One of our favorites is Xiaohe Sichuan cuisine, which hails from the cities of Zigong, Luzhou and Yibin in the province’s southern region. Originally famous for its salt mining, the Xiaohe (which means “small river”) region is now perhaps best known for the Zigong Dinosaur Museum, a monumental museum built over a dig site that’s had an incredible number of dinosaur finds. But the local cuisine – renowned for being spicy and creative – is worth exploring.

All morning, as we zoomed down south from Naples on a motorcycle, inky clouds threatened rain. So when we arrive at Rivabianca, a mozzarella di bufala cooperative in the village of Paestum, with our clothes still dry, we exhale deeply, not realizing that we had been holding our breath. Inside the dairy’s production center, separated from the small shop by large windows and a big metal door, it looks as if the rain has already come and gone – the tile floor is covered in water. “Wait just a sec, you’ll need these to go inside,” says Rosa Maria Wedig, the owner of Rivabianca, handing us two plastic bags. Before we can make a move, she’s bending down and shoving them on our feet, using duct tape to secure them around our ankles.

Wandering around the neighborhood of Çarşamba, home to a famous weekly market and close to the sprawling Fatih Mosque complex, we get the distinct impression that this area is honey central: the streets are lined with shops selling the sweet nectar, particularly stuff coming from the Black Sea region. “This area is full of honey sellers,” Aslan confirms on a cold November afternoon after we took refuge in his store, Balmerkez, “but there is no place like this.” He’s right – there’s something about his storefront that we found particularly appealing on that cold day. Perhaps it’s because Aslan’s little shop looks more like an atelier than a commercial outlet. Pots, containers, glass jars and wicker baskets are stacked high on the shelves – a honey lab may be a more fitting description.

You would think Sérgio Oliveira, the owner of Conga in Porto and the secret-keeper of its legendary recipe for bifanas, would be tired of the restaurant’s signature dish. But you’d be wrong. “As much as I try not to eat it, I cannot. It is impossible,” he says. "One always eats it; there is no chance not to.” It’s a simple but addictive dish. Pork, cooked all day in a mysterious spicy sauce and stuffed into a piece of bread that looks a bit like a roll– at first glance, it does not seem to impress. But Porto continues to hide the best and tastiest of its secrets in the simplest things in life.

In happier times in Aleppo, a sweet drink called sharab al-louz ¬– made with almond extract, milk and sugar – was a staple at celebratory events such as engagement parties and weddings, Ammar Rida recalls. That was before he had to leave his job as a lecturer at the University of Aleppo and flee Syria lest he be conscripted to fight in the war that has been ravaging his country since 2011. Today, Rida, a serious man in his late thirties with short salt-and-pepper hair and a stubbly beard, is working to establish a business selling sharab al-louz and other healthy, natural drinks – some traditional to Syria and others he is developing based on his background in food science – at restaurants in Istanbul.

In the history of Neapolitan cuisine, the most important revolution, the one that transformed the culinary habits of people across southern Italy, is certainly the flourishing of dried pasta. Until the second half of the 17th century, Neapolitans were nicknamed mangiafoglie (leaf-eaters) – the volcanic land surrounding the city was incredibly productive, resulting in a large variety of vegetables that formed the basis of the local diet. But by the end of the 17th century, the ideal climatic and economic conditions converged in that bend in the sea between Naples and the Sorrento coast, where the towns of Gragnano and Castellammare di Stabia are located, to allow for the rise of dried pasta.

Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Portugal, Morocco, Tunisia – one thing that unites this swathe of the Mediterranean is olive oil, whose use in the Fertile Crescent can be traced back to 6000 B.C.E. Olives arrived in the southern part of the Iberian Peninsula around 9th century B.C.E. with the Phoenicians. Ancient Rome saw huge quantities of olive oil from Hispania Baetica (currently Andalucía) being transported throughout the Roman Empire in millions of amphorae (made in Baetica). Spain leads production of olive oil to this day, with 45 percent of the global total. The majority (65 percent) of Spanish olive oil production is sold to Italy, where this oil is mixed with others (normally of the same quality, but not always) and sold under an Italian label.

Hnin “Snow” Wai is on a mission to introduce Burmese food and culture to New York. Together with her husband, Snow (Hnin means “Snow” in Burmese, so she likes to be called “Snow” in English) is the co-founder of DeRangoon, a Burmese catering company based in East Elmhurst, Queens. The couple began vending at the Queens Night Market in 2017, and Snow’s tea leaf salad recipe was included in “The World Eats Here: Amazing Food and The Inspiring People Who Make It At Queens Night Market” (The Experiment, 2020). Earlier this year we spoke to co-authors John Wang, the Queens Night Market founder, and Storm Garner, a filmmaker and oral historian, about the cookbook, which showcases 88 diverse recipes directly from Queens Night Market’s vendor-chefs, many of whom are first- and second-generation immigrants.

Spanish speakers, join Francisco de Santiago (“Paco”), our lead guide in Mexico City who goes by Conde Pétatl on Instagram, for a new series called Las Crónicas del Conde (“The Chronicles of Conde”). From May 21 until June 16, he will chat with a different guest from around Mexico about the country’s cuisines, cultural traditions and history on Instagram Live each Thursday at 8 p.m. CDT (GMT-5). Paco is a Mexico City native who has a deep passion for his country’s cuisine. He is also a kind of renaissance man — a former champion chess player, bullfighter and more recently, a professional gastro-guide. These days, Paco focuses on the antojitos, or little culinary cravings of his hometown, which are a hallmark of a culinary tour of the city with him.

Neapolitans have a special affinity for pasta. It’s a staple pantry, sure, but also more than that – in Naples, pasta is part of the pervading spirit of the place. Not only do we have great respect for this ingredient, but we also appreciate the minute differences between shapes, differences that would surely be overlooked elsewhere. This sensitivity, like many gastronomic rules, has been handed down for generations. With the aim of sharing such knowledge (and taking inspiration from my Pantry Raid presentation on Instagram Live), I put together a pasta guide, which will allow you to make and order pasta dishes as true Neapolitans do, and avoid the mistakes that true Neapolitans would never make.