In this installment of Pantry Raid, a video series in which our walk leaders give a guided tour of the local pantry and discuss the staples that have sustained their communities over the years, watch Paula Mourenza, our Barcelona bureau chief, talk all about conservas, canned or tinned seafood. As Paula previously wrote, in Spain, conservas “are not simply a matter of economic survival or a source of basic nutrition for students, hikers, military recruits and the like. Rather, the tradition of conservas more resembles that of keeping one’s most beautiful jewelry locked safe in a strongbox, to be brought out only on special occasions.”

We recently spoke to Lisa Granik MW about her book, “The Wines of Georgia” (Infinite Ideas, November 2019). Granik became a Master of Wine in 2006, and was a Professor of Wine at the New York Institute of Technology from 2013-15. Currently she advises wine companies and regions seeking to improve their sales in the United States. Granik, who has written for publications such as The New York Times, The World of Fine Wine and Sommelier Journal, dives into Georgian wine culture in this title, explaining not only grape varieties, terroirs, winemaking methods and viticulture but also the centrality of wine to Georgian culture generally.

To make my 12-person quiche I need: 12 eggs, 4 cups of cream, a pound of Emmenthal and two giant bags of frozen spinach. No, I’m not on lockdown with a soccer team, nor am I hosting an illicit dinner party. I am cooking for the nighttime ER team at the Hôpital Nord. My effort isn’t a solo act, but in alliance with one of the grassroots associations created in response to the coronavirus crisis. The clearly named Cuisinons Pour Les Soignants de l’Hopital Nord (Cook for the Medical Staff of the Hopital Nord) gathers local home cooks, restaurants and food purveyors to make meals for hospital staff. For those who aren’t culinarily inclined but want to contribute, Pizza du Coeur delivers Marseille’s most popular food to caregivers.

Several years back, before İstiklal became an open-air shopping mall, reaching old man Sabırtaşı’s streetside içli köfte stand felt like pulling into a safe harbor. Always standing there was the beatific Ali Bey, an angel in a white doctor’s coat offering salvation in the form of his golden fried içli köfte. Although his presence is still sorely missed, his son Mustafa – who inherited not only his father’s white coat but also his kind demeanor – and wife have proudly continued the tradition of selling their sublime içli köfte to İstiklal’s hungry pedestrians.

The next installment of CB Pantry Raid, a series in which our walk leaders give a guided tour of the local pantry and discuss the staples that have sustained their communities over the years, features Francisco de Santiago (“Paco”), our lead guide in Mexico City, who will be talking all about corn. Tune in on Thursday, April 30, at 5 p.m. EDT (GMT-4) on Instagram Live. Corn is vital to Mexican cuisine and culture – one of the things we love most about dining in Mexico is the high likelihood that our meal will have a healthy dose of corn in one form or another. Sometimes we even wash down our corn with some corn, like when we order tamales with atole, a traditional beverage made of corn flour, fruit, spices, and milk or water.

Poverty and social problems are a worrying side effect of the pandemic, especially in big cities like Lisbon. As in most urban environments, there is a significant homeless population. Moreover, skyrocketing unemployment has meant more people than ever are in need of some assistance – families are struggling to pay their rent and put food on the table. The Portuguese have responded, however, to this large need with an equally large number of solidarity projects. While it’s impossible to name all the people involved who have stepped up to help, we thought it would be worth highlighting the efforts of many people in the food and wine industries.

Enrique Del Moral (1905-1987) was one of the most important architects of modern Mexico. Together with Mario Pani and Pedro Ramírez Vázquez, he revamped Mexico City in the 1950s. One of his most important designs was the new La Merced Market, which opened in 1957 (the market built in the 1860s was demolished to make way for the new structures). Located east of Mexico City’s Main Square, the massive market used to be the wholesaler for the city, until La Central de Abasto was built in the late 20th century. Today, I want to talk about a family who has been working for 38 years inside Nave Mayor, by far the biggest of the original seven market spaces in Enrique Del Moral’s design.

Sunday, April 19, was Easter in the Orthodox Christian world, the holiest day of the year. Like most people in today’s pandemic world, Maka Shengelia, one of our walk leaders in Tbilisi, was home being a responsible citizen. But she was also spreading butter on her own freshly baked paska, Easter bread, popular in the Eastern Church. It is a tall, dome-shaped cake, inseparable from Easter’s other “edible decoration,” boiled eggs dyed a deep magenta with endro (madder root). God will forgive you for celebrating Easter without going to church, but commemorating it without red eggs and paska is another matter entirely.

Greek Easter was extraordinary – in the truest sense of the word – this year. Despite the fantastic weather people had to stay at home to celebrate, quite a lonesome setup compared to the crowded daylong outdoor feast that we are normally used to. Despite being at home, my 7-year-old son and I did all the same Easter traditions, just in smaller quantities. One of the most fun traditions for children is the “egg breaking” ritual. We dye eggs on Good Thursday; this year, since my son is into space and Star Wars, we used that as inspiration and dyed our eggs like planets – we’ve got plenty of time, so we might as well use it creatively!

The next installment of our CB Pantry Raid series, in which our walk leaders give a guided tour of the local pantry and discuss the staples that have sustained their communities over the years, features Paula Mourenza, our Barcelona bureau chief, who will be talking all about conservas, or foods preserved in cans and jars. Tune in on Friday, April 24, at 5 p.m. EDT (GMT-4) on Instagram Live. As Paula previously wrote, in Spain, conservas “are not simply a matter of economic survival or a source of basic nutrition for students, hikers, military recruits and the like. Rather, the tradition of conservas more resembles that of keeping one’s most beautiful jewelry locked safe in a strongbox, to be brought out only on special occasions.”

Normally when you cross Las Ramblas, it’s like trying to navigate a river coursing with energy; more often than not, the current is too strong. On some days, the rush is easier to manage and more enjoyable. Lately, however, a strange emptiness has descended on the boulevard – no more crowds, no more buzz. But if you listen closely, a pulse remains, that of the area’s historic resilience, which is baked into the very stones that pave this famous thoroughfare. So many things have happened here, and Las Ramblas has endured so much. As Barcelona struggles with the current pandemic, which has brought a surreal silence to the city and raises difficult questions about how to reopen and rebuild, La Boquería, the 19th-century market at the heart of Las Ramblas that in recent years had become overrun with tourists, is reclaiming its role as a neighborhood market.

One of the things we cherish most at Culinary Backstreets are the friendships we build with the restaurant and small business owners featured on our walks. While we worry what will happen to them (and their independent businesses) once the pandemic ends, we also want to learn more about what they are doing during this period. The first person we checked in with was chef Filipe Rodrigues, from Taberna do Mar. He hasn’t left home since he closed the small corner restaurant, one of the highlights of our Lisbon walk “Hidden Flavors of the Hillside: Graça and Mouraria,” on March 14. While the delicious fish dishes are always a big hit with our guests, they really seem to love chatting to Filipe and admiring his skills, especially when he torches the sardine nigiri.

“No kid without a mona” is the current refrain of Gremi de Pastisseria de Barcelona (the Barcelona Pastry Guild) – it’s their response to the coronavirus quarantine interrupting this Easter culinary tradition (godparents normally give the dessert as a present to their godchildren around the holiday). The guild, which includes 200 patisseries in the province of Barcelona, has launched a campaign to bring this slogan to fruition. The initiative is two-fold: first, they followed strict hygiene measures to make these delicious edible gifts that godparents ordered online or by telephone to be delivered to the homes of their godchildren last Monday, the Easter holiday called Pascua Florida.

Growing up with a Midwestern Protestant mom and a Montreal-born Jewish dad, my family’s holidays wove together traditions, much like a braided challah bread. We topped our Christmas tree with the Star of David and served matzo at Easter brunch. More cultural than religious, our celebrations weren’t restricted to one faith or another. What mattered was the meaning: respecting our roots through ritual and thoughtfully gathering together around the table. Now living in multicultural Marseille, I still celebrate with the same interconnected spirit. Here, the similarities of the springtime holidays abound. For starters, they are semantic cousins, with Passover, Pâque juive, known as “Jewish Easter” in French.

We recently spoke to Joe Yonan, the James Beard Award-winning food and dining editor of The Washington Post, about his new cookbook, “Cool Beans: The Ultimate Guide to the World's Most Versatile Plant-Based Protein” (Ten Speed Press, February 2020). He has written two other books for Ten Speed: “Eat Your Vegetables: Bold Recipes for the Single Cook” (2013) and “Serve Yourself: Nightly Adventures in Cooking for One” (2011). The humble bean plays a starring role in many of the culinary cultures we cover, as evidenced by our “Bean Week” series, which included dispatches from Catalonia, Beijing, Mexico, Greece and Istanbul. So we were delighted to talk to Joe about this delicious, versatile and environmentally friendly protein, one that has gained new prominence in the current pandemic.