“It’s good for tourists, not for us.” While this can sadly be said about many things, Anabela, the woman we are speaking to, is referring to the transformation of Mercado da Ribeira, Lisbon’s historic public market, where she co-runs a small grocery store. Originally built as a predominantly wholesale food, fish and flower market in 1771, Ribeira today shares its space with Mercado Time Out, financed by the venture capital firm that controls the publishing franchise in Portugal, which has occupied the central section of the market since 2014. Time Out’s concept: an “editorially” curated gourmet food hall. Selling the best of Portugal – from croquettes and custard tarts to seafood and steak – it is now a top attraction, with 24 restaurants, eight bars, a dozen shops and a high-end music venue.

To her friends, Michelle Boyce, the owner of Shelly’s Café, is “Michelle.” That was the name called out by many customers, when arriving or departing, as we sat and talked in her sunny dining area on a recent afternoon. She is, to be sure, also “Shelly,” a diminutive bestowed on her by her mom in Newry, County Down, one of six counties that form Northern Ireland. Years later and an ocean away from that childhood home – Michelle left Newry for New York as a young adult in 2010 – she told us of her continuing “passion to recreate my mom's home cooking.” In that sense, the name “Shelly’s Café” evokes both mother and daughter.

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.

Forty years ago, José was the most popular boys’ name in Portugal. It had been the undisputed leader in that category for several decades. But trends change, and in 2017 José didn't even crack the top 20. So, it's quite possible that the future will bring an influx of restaurants named after Santiago, the top choice for the last two years. But as we write this there are still a lot of Zé(s) – the shortened form of José – around town. Zé da Mouraria is famous for its magnificent roasted codfish. Zé Varunca serves great food from Alentejo, the home region of this particular José. And the list goes on: Zé dos Frangos, Zé Carioca, Tasca do Zé and, of course, Zé dos Cornos.

There are many legends and myths surrounding the Pyrenees. Some claim that the divine hero Hercules created the mountains by piling up rocks as a tomb for his love Pyrene, who had died in one of the area’s forests after being bitten by a snake. While a romantic story, the Pyrenees are much more than a mausoleum and a symbol of mythic love – they are also the birthplace of Basque culture and a disputed border between Spain and France, a place crisscrossed by Roman roads and sprinkled with Roman architecture, a key point in the Camino de Santiago (Way of Saint James) and a legendary land for the Catalans.

Greek food has been experiencing a renaissance in recent years – an unexpected byproduct of the country’s economic struggles. Greeks are rediscovering their culinary roots, and the world outside is also taking a new look at the country and its cuisine, raising Greece’s profile as a culinary destination in the process. But running parallel to this tale of economic stagnation and culinary resurgence is the story of economic migrants and refugees, people who fled to Europe in the hopes of finding a better life. While the focus as of late has understandably been on the Syrian refugee population living in camps throughout Greece, economic migrants from a wide range of countries have been quietly toiling away in Athens for years.

Once the Christmas nativities are packed away, after the New Year’s cotechino sausage and good luck lentils have been eaten and the Befana witch has filled epiphany stockings with candies, something strange happens in the old center of Naples. It erupts in flames. As the January sun sets, just as the days begin to lengthen, Neapolitan men light small bonfires in the dark alleys and decadent piazzas that lurk beyond Via Foria, the ancient boulevard that slices through the town’s Forcella and Rione Sanità quarters. The fires begin small. Men merrily douse bits of the Gazzetta dello Sport with gasoline, searching specifically for errant wrinkled pictures of Higuaín, loathed former Napoli footballer traded to Juventus.

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.

At first bite, the flavors don’t seem that different. But then comes a rush of spice or an unfamiliar herbal note, and it’s clear that this isn’t standard Greek fare – in fact, it’s not Greek at all. It may serve a community of Greeks, but – as its name implies – the Association of Greeks from Egypt (SAE) specializes in Egyptian food. What began as a small canteen providing the familiar tastes of home for the association’s members has grown over the years into a popular local hangout, dishing up traditional Egyptian dishes to Athenians of all persuasions. Despite the long and storied history of Hellenistic culture, which stretches into antiquity, the modern state of Greece is relatively young, and like many nation states, its story is bound up in migration.

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.

“There are two Oaxacan foods – what is served for tourists, and what people really eat,” says Marahí López, the chef at Comixcal, an Oaxacan restaurant in Mexico City’s Santa Maria La Ribera neighborhood. “There is a way that Oaxacan food is sold that is totally detached from the way we eat it in Oaxaca.” López knows of what she speaks, hailing from Juchitán, the culinary and cultural capital of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Oaxaca. She met Alexis Jiménez, who is from the Central Valleys surrounding Oaxaca City, while both were attending university in Mexico City. López and Jiménez teamed up to establish Comixcal in June 2016, after receiving degrees in Gastronomy and Anthropology, respectively.

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.