When it comes to fragrances, nothing makes you stop in your tracks and moan in delight more than the redolence of mtsvadi roasting on the coals of grape vine trimmings. It’s the juicy sizzling fat basting the chunks of skewered pork that clinches it and makes whiffing the browning meat just as good as eating it. For one October weekend every year, the entire center of Tbilisi is immersed in wafts of barbecue from perhaps hundreds of hot grills, called makhali, as men, teary-eyed in billows of smoke, turn the skewers in pop-up sidewalk picnic parties. This is part of an annual event called Tbilisoba, a kind of Georgian Oktoberfest, but much cooler.

On a late spring afternoon I sat at the only table at Tadal, an Armenian deli in Kurtuluş. Behind me were shelves lined with imported liquors: French, Greek and Georgian wines, Russian vodkas, an admirable range of Scotch whiskies. Opposite, a refrigerated case groaned with meze (lakerda and taramasalata, rice-filled sweet red pepper dolma and mercimek koftesi, anchovies in olive oil), many varieties of olives and a range of cured meats that included not only the ubiquitous çemen-coated beef pastırma but also pork-based specimens like mortadella and salami. Cheeses were arranged next to tubs of pickles and clay dishes of buffalo-milk yogurt.

An important part of our chacha journey is making sure that the moonshine still is sealed with a putty made of ash, earth and water.

Lisbon is changing every day. That change is noticeable all around the city in different ways. On any given day, a new Hollywood celebrity might be joining the ranks of current residents Madonna, Michael Fassbender and Monica Bellucci. This famous person will likely buy an enormous loft in a neighborhood where long-established shops are giving way to all-white, contemporary stores that look like they belong in Scandanavia. These shops are probably just down the street from an abandoned building recently acquired by a private equity real estate fund, whose investors will never know how good the local tascas were because they all closed their doors due to rising rents.

Fall often crashes down like a ton of bricks over Istanbul, but it’s a welcome blow. Crisp evenings replace sticky, humid ones overnight. During the day it’s warm enough to walk around in a T-shirt if it’s sunny, though you may need to have a sweater on hand if the sun dips behind a cloud. It was a late afternoon in early October that cemented our deep love for Istanbul. We boarded a ferry from the Anatolian side before the sun set. It was still warm enough to sit outside without a jacket, and the energy of the changing season, both invigorating and soothing, coursed through the air and then our veins.

The promise of food prepared before our eyes, just for us, is a big reason that we’re constantly spreading the good word about food events in and around New York. We’re especially fond of festivals and other gatherings held by members of a close-knit group – sometimes congregants of a church, temple or mosque, almost always folks who share the common bond of a previous homeland far away. Often their dishes are assembled by (gloved) hand immediately before serving for maximal stimulating freshness. A few such events repeat periodically, but most, we know all too well, come just once a year. We’re always on the lookout, then, for businesses that take a similar up-close-and-personal approach.

Saffron may be most commonly associated with Iran, currently the world’s largest producer of this costliest of spices, but it has a long and storied history across the Mediterranean, particularly in Spain. Once an important saffron producer and trading center, Catalonia has seen a resurgence in saffron cultivation in recent years. The spice, which comes from the Crocus sativus, a fall-flowering crocus, has a long history; ancient civilizations, including the Persians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and more, put saffron in all sorts of foods and drinks, and also used it for medicinal purposes and as a dye. The common belief is that saffron was introduced to the Iberian Peninsula by the Moors in the 9th or 10th century.

As the highway speeds out of Lisbon northward, the pastel apartment blocks of greater Lisbon’s northern sprawl give way to plots of farmland. It’s a road with no distinction, one not unlike countless others leaving cities elsewhere. Around 80 kilometers from Lisbon, the highway passes into the region of Oeste; although not readily apparent, Oeste is a place of great distinction. That becomes clearer a bit farther down the road, where on the side of a warehouse the words “Rocha Mundial” are printed beside the giant likeness of the region’s claim to fame, a green pear with light brown spots.

In the sections of China’s Jiangsu Province where Huaiyang cuisine reigns supreme, autumn is marked not by yellow and red foliage or falling temperatures. The change in seasons instead comes when restaurants post hairy crab (大闸蟹 Dàzháxiè) menus and shops selling baked goods the rest of the year pivot to aquariums full of the live crabs trying to scale the glass walls. Peak hairy crab season falls during the ninth and tenth lunar month of the year. In 2017, that means from October 20 until December 17. But when we arrived at Yangcheng Lake – a hairy crab mecca – before China’s National Holiday on October 1, the lake was already lined with hawkers wrapping the live crabs with twine and selling them to hungry tourists.

Late October marks the start of the olive picking season throughout Greece. From Thrace to Crete, from Corfu to Lesvos, and even in the suburbs of Athens, landowners lucky enough to have olive trees will start harvesting their fruit. And the harvest may continue for another six months. On Crete, for example, where neat rows of low trees cover vast areas, civil servants are given leave to collect their olives in January and February. On Corfu, on the other hand, where the giant trees are too tall for easy harvesting, the common practice is to spread black nets underneath them and wait for the fruit to drop. They collect it once a month until late spring.

The Telavi-Gurjaani Highway is a two-lane ribbon that meanders across the fertile Alazani Valley, linking sedate east Georgian hamlets together like a string of old lights. Not a lot happens out here; SUVs and new sedans speed past lethargic jalopies and donkeys pulling carts of sticks, while men sit under the shade of the trees watching the world go by. The vibe changes in September, though, when the slumbering villages spark to life. It’s harvest time, and the rural road is suddenly busy with cars, dump trucks and tractors pulling trailers – all either packed with grapes or one their way to the fields to pick them. This is Georgia’s largest wine region and nearly every family here has some stake in the winemaking process.

Photographer David Hagerman is one half of the duo behind the new cookbook Istanbul & Beyond: Exploring the Diverse Cuisines of Turkey, which will be published by Rux Martin Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (USA) on October 10. Together with Robyn Eckhardt, his journalist wife and the author of Istanbul & Beyond, he has crisscrossed Turkey countless times in order to document farm-to-table food culture and discover the country’s best dishes. The resulting book is a stunning culinary journey through Turkey, one told as much through the recipes collected as through Hagerman’s arresting photos. We spoke with David about his approach to shooting the images for the book, culinary culture in Turkey and some of his favorite spots in the country.

As soon as you enter Mercado Jamaica, one of Mexico City’s largest markets, you will quickly see (and smell) its main trade: flowers. Down the long aisles, hundreds of sellers line up colorful flowers that come from Xochimilco and other states. Visiting the market truly engages all the senses. But, you may ask, how does this include taste? Well, Jamaica Market happens to be home to several outstanding food vendors, among them one of our favorite taco stands in all of Mexico City. Hidden away among the market’s produce vendors, this stand doesn’t have a sign, and you can easily miss it if you don’t know what you’re looking for. Once you find it, though, you’ll keep coming back for their superb green chorizo tacos.

I used to joke that the only thing binding together Spain is the classic tortilla española, which in Catalonia we refer to as the tortilla de patatas – a neutral name. This potato omelet is one of the very few traditional dishes that is prepared the same way (and equally beloved) throughout Spain’s Autonomous Communities, the regions created after the Spanish Constitution of 1978, a necessary step towards creating a democratic country after the end of Franco’s dictatorship. The fact that this is one of the few dishes we all have in common highlights the significant regional differences of our traditional cuisine, despite our common Mediterranean culinary culture.

The sun is already down when the food kiosks at the entrance to the Z10 fishing colony open their doors. It’s evening and we are on Ilha do Governador (Governor’s Island), the largest island in Guanabara Bay and far away from Rio’s tourist spots – the only reason most visitors come to this working-class suburb is to catch a flight at the Rio de Janeiro International Airport. These kiosks are almost all alike: boring food stalls serving bland seafood broths, bad pizzas and standard sandwiches. But six months ago, a new kiosk set up shop, one that was completely different from the others. It’s called Lá na Rosi and serves some of the most amazing street food in Rio.