Several years ago, when the Michelin Guide decided to swoop into Japan and rate its cuisine, restaurateurs were slightly shell-shocked to learn that Japan came away with almost as many highly regarded establishments as France. (And in fact, Tokyo wound up with two more three-star restaurants than Paris.) Then, in 2013, UNESCO put washoku (Japanese cuisine) on its Intangible Cultural Heritage List, alongside such icons as the Argentine tango, Turkish coffee and falconry.

Upon the hot and dry plains of Les Garrigues, two irrigation canals cut through an agricultural expanse, diverging first from the ample Segre River, which runs through the center of the city of Lleida, before subdividing again, their meandering channels reaching farther and farther into an otherwise parched plateau. These life-giving tributaries are collectively known as the Canal d’Urgell. Les Garrigues, a region of the Catalan province of Lleida, is a fertile green splotch on an otherwise arid landscape 150 kilometers inland from Barcelona. The irrigation of this region, first conceptualized by the Moors in the 13th century but carried out on a grand scale in the late 1700s, has enabled the cultivation and nurturing of farmland, where a crop of prized arbequina olives and fragrant almond trees now stretches toward the horizon.

The Praça da Bandeira, an area of Rio that until recent years was mostly known for prostitution and cheap inner-city housing, is rapidly changing. Lying in the shadow of the massive Maracanã Stadium – built for the 1950 World Cup and the planned location of the opening ceremony of the 2016 Summer Olympics – it is alive with new construction and pedestrian traffic, which are changing the tired face of this historical but underappreciated neighborhood. And sitting snugly in the midst of this new buzz is Aconchego Carioca, a restaurant and bar with one of the best beer menus in Rio.

Why are you seeing colorful, 1960s-era carbonated water siphons everywhere in Barcelona? Because they’re the symbol of our beloved vermut ritual. The phrase hacer el vermut (literally “to do the vermouth”) in Spain has for decades described not only that delicious beverage, but also any kind of pre-lunch aperitif. But since the end of the 19th century in Barcelona, the vermut ritual – a fresh drink accompanied by tapas composed usually of preserved food, cold cuts, cured or marinated fish or seafood – has been a way to bring people together before meals. Perhaps no one is more responsible for vermouth’s popularity here than Flaminio Mezzalama, the Italian Martini & Rossi representative in Spain, who in the first decade of the 20th century opened two beautiful Art Nouveau vermouth bars, which became hugely popular. Mezzalama died in Torino in 1911, but the fame of vermouth in Catalonia only grew, with local investors putting their money into production of Catalan vermut.

Chat up the older residents of a Rio favela and you’re likely to start hearing romantic stories about Brazil’s northeast: those colorful cajú and mangaba fruit trees, the clear turquoise ocean, the folksy and upbeat forró music, chewy tapioca sandwiches and cakes. Brazilians call that saudades – a longing for something lost, which may or may not exist in the form one dreamily remembers it. These are the pleasant memories many northeastern immigrants hold amidst the urban hustle of crowded Rio de Janeiro, where a working-class Brazilian knows the beach exists but easily lives a hot two-hour bus ride away from it.

Sitting on the boardwalk of Veracruz, about five or six hours east of Mexico City, we watch the blinking lights of shrimp and fish boats in the farthest distance, knowing our next dinner is on its way. A day before, arriving from the bus, all we wanted was especially satisfying seafood, and the hunt brought us downtown, which, in the past, has always provided. Veracruz is a warm harbor, embracing all comers and proposing excellent food and endless dancing into the night on the city’s street corners. Or that’s how we remembered it.

Edirne has more meat to offer beyond the glistening liver that bears its name. Deniz Börek Salonu has crowned the top of Saraçlar Caddesi since 1986. Every morning, lines of salivating citizens hurry to work with crunchy poğaças or sit down to enjoy steaming heaps of stuffed pastry. While there are many börek places in Edirne, few are able to produce the consistently delicious product that Deniz is known for. Imagine, if you will, savory labyrinthine baklava sheets of golden-brown pastry, stuffed like sausages. The bready tubes are baked, set on a hot table in a window, then viciously chopped into strips with a knife that looks like it should belong to a 19th-century werewolf hunter. Common fare at börek places are kıymalı (minced meat), peynirli (salty white cheese), patatesli (potatoes) and ıspanaklı (spinach).

Like other cities around the world, Mexico City has been flooded with big-name chain coffee shops that charge exorbitant prices for a cup of bad coffee. Fortunately, D.F. is a city of contrasts, where good taste in coffee still exists. We set out to find the best coffee shops in town and were surprised by what we found. Our first stop was one coffee shop we have been visiting for several years now, Café Triana, inside Mercado San Juan, the city’s first gourmet stop par excellence. Marilu and Pablo Arana started selling coffee from Veracruz, a city on the Gulf of Mexico with a Caribbean feel, in the aisles of the market until they got the chance to get a booth and start their own coffee shop. Their establishment has since been featured in many national and international media outlets.

Each year at the end of May, more than 12,000 penyistes and 200,000 hungry visitors devour 12 tons of snails in one mere weekend in the city of Lleida, the capital of Catalonia’s interior. The Aplec del Caragol (“Snail Gathering”) is now an internationally known gastronomic event of impressive magnitude. Just under two hours inland from Barcelona by car and an hour by high-speed train, Lleida is an easy trip worth taking, especially in late spring, when friends and families gather to eat and drink with abandon. Typical foods prepared by the colles (gangs) of penyistes (participants) who register together and participate in the Aplec every year (sometimes for decades without fail) include paella, fideuà (a typical pasta preparation), grilled meats and sausages, stews and salads. However, the tender, tasty land snail is the main attraction.

For the past 24 years, Cemil Tuncay has wheeled his small metal cart to the biweekly produce pazar in Edirne. He sets up shop around noon, lighting coals under what can be described as massive, torpedo-shaped sausages. Kokoreç is a simple fast food made from bits of sheep left over from butchering, stuffed into intestines to the bursting point. It is a one-man operation. With the exception of his wife (who sometimes helps him clean and prepare the meat), Tuncay goes it alone. His mustachioed face is often grizzled with a little bit of stubble and worn by years’ worth of fragrant grill smoke. He is tall and stoops over a bit to prepare each order, doing so with a jaunty smile and a twinkle in his eyes.

George Vassalos is a beekeeper, farmer, master distiller. He lives in Lagkada, in the center of Amorgos, at the southern end of the Cyclades, and which was made famous by the movie Le Grand Bleu (1988). We were lucky enough to be at his farm recently when he made pasteli using his own thyme honey and sesame grown in Chalkidiki.

One of the seven necessities of Chinese daily life, rice is eaten in many forms throughout the day, including – and especially – at breakfast. Congee is undoubtedly China’s best-known breakfast food, but less famous globally, and wildly popular locally, is the unassuming rice ball (饭团, fàn tuán).

Shanghai is a street food lovers' paradise, with carts slinging dumplings, pancakes, noodles, buns and grilled meats on sidewalks across the city, morning, noon and night. These are a few of our favorites. 1: Shengjianbao A Shanghai specialty, shēngjiān mántou (生煎馒头) – or shēngjiān bāo (生煎包), as they’re known everywhere else in China – are juicy pork buns wrapped in bread dough, then arranged in a flat, oil-slicked wok in which the bottoms are deep-fried till they are crispy. Although shengjian mantou can be found on most street corners in the morning, we’re especially fond of the delicious misshapen buns at Da Hu Chun. A Chinese Time-Honored Brand (老字号, lǎozìhào), Da Hu Chun has been splattering grease since the 1930s and, nearly 80 years later, has six restaurants across Shanghai. The venue’s chefs use the rare “clear water” technique, frying the pinched side of the dough face-up to create little Frankenstein buns that might not be as photogenic as the more common “troubled water” variety, but that have a thinner skin that gets extra crisp – and we’ll sacrifice good looks any day if it means better flavor. 2: Guotie

You don’t need the excuse of a ferry departure to head for the port of Rafina, on Attica’s east coast. Its long, open beach is a favorite among windsurfers, its fish stalls carry the catch from most of the central Aegean and, most important, it offers a handful of excellent eateries. But how can you separate the standouts from the run-of-the-mill?

In Delhi the heat has enveloped everything. And refreshing drinks, made from short- and long-lived seasonal fruits, have arrived on the streets.