Home to countless immigrant stories, Queens is the most diverse borough in New York City, with over two million people, half of whom were born outside the United States. So it’s no surprise that the area’s markets – some sprawling, many more pocket-sized – are equally as diverse, serving immigrant communities both old and new. We recently sent out New York-based photographer Melanie Einzig to document fall’s bounty at five of the borough’s diverse marketplaces. Her visual harvest can be found below.

The rain makes it feel like November, when the majority of Spain’s olive oil producers begin the harvest to make extra virgin olive oil. Yet it’s October, and we’re watching the gathering of Arbequina olives in Belianes, very close to the city of Lleida in central Catalonia. These beauties are mostly green, with a few already changing to purple. Jose Ramón Morera, one of the owners of the small company Camins de Verdor, is finishing the harvest of these green olives for Umami, their premium line of olive oil. An absorbing deep green color, the organic extra virgin olive oil is intensely aromatic and fruity, made from early harvested oils that are mechanically pressed using a traditional cold extraction method.

While on a Queens walk, we stopped into a bakery specializing in baked goods and pastries popular in Ecuador. At this time of year, you’ll likely find t’anta wawa, a type of sweet roll shaped and decorated in the form of a small child or infant that is traditionally eaten on Día de los Difuntos, All Souls’ Day (November 2), in Ecuador.

In Mexico, the land of eternal spring, something good to eat is always in season. We ravenously await the arrival of artichokes in March, mangos in April, fresh corn in September. Even the wriggly little gusanos de maguey (maguey worms) which appear in May are wildly anticipated – by some. Change in season is subtle here, but essential to the survival of the country. But seasonal lines are blurring. Asparagus rears its tasteless Chilean head all year; pallid strawberries are found in December. Seasons have gone global and our palates suffer for it. Which is all the more reason to pay attention to what’s local now. From July into October, coinciding with our temporada de lluvia, wild mushrooms, spurred on by rain and humidity, hit the markets of central Mexico. Here in the capital, the month of August is high ‘shroom time.

Let us begin with a little Greek mythology. Hermes – son of Zeus, god of thieves and commerce and messenger of Olympus – and Krokos, a mortal youth, were best friends. One day, while the two friends were practicing their discus throwing, Hermes accidentally hit Crocus on the head and wounded him fatally. On the very spot where he was felled, a beautiful flower sprang up. Three drops of blood from Krokos’s head fell on the center of the flower, from which three stigmas grew. This is just one of many origin stories for Crocus sativus, or the saffron crocus, whose crimson stigmas are harvested to make the highly prized spice of the same name.

We have each got a couple of buckets and a pair of gardening clips and we are standing in a dewy vineyard in the middle of the majestic Alazani Valley. The autumn air is brisk, fresh with the fruity smell of grapes and the sun is warm, clouds permitting. Looming northward like some godly guardian of this huge, precious grape basket is the awe-inspiring Greater Caucasus range. It is rtveli, the harvest, and here in Kakheti, families across Georgia’s chief winemaking region are busy making wine much like their ancestors have done for centuries. They pick, crush and ferment wine in kvevri, enormous ceramic urns buried into the ground, or in oak barrels. They add nothing to enhance the fermentation process, the crushed grapes are stirred several times daily until they feel the maceration process is completed.

Walking around the busy Çarşamba Market in Fatih on a Wednesday, we spot a line of people waiting patiently in front of a butcher shop. Not wholly unsurprising, since it is a market day, but we notice that some of them are enjoying particularly tasty-looking döner sandwiches. The tempting smell coming from the little shop, an innocuous place named Seçkin Et ve Tavuk, convinces us to join the crowd – a mixture of families, groups of old ladies and men taking a break from work – and grab a portion of döner accompanied by fresh tomatoes, pickles and fries, and washed down by the ever-present ayran.

Ramen may have seen a worldwide boom in recent years, but when it comes to soba – Japanese buckwheat noodles – fans might say they’ve been unfairly neglected. “Soba have a history of at least 400 years, as long as sushi. Yet they’re almost completely unknown abroad,” chef Yoshinobu Saito says, pondering the concept behind his first ever restaurant. “I guess I don’t have a specific concept for the store. But I do want to promote soba worldwide.”

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 forbearers 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’s a saying in Naples: “Anything fried is good, even the soles of shoes.” So it’s no surprise that we stop for some fried goodies on our Naples culinary walk. Our favorites are the panzerotti, soft potato croquettes filled with salami and mozzarella, and the arancini, golden and crispy rice balls.

With a simple façade, the unassuming Fonda Margarita sits next to a carwash and wouldn’t attract much attention if it weren’t for the line out the door and around the block by the time it opens at 5:30 a.m. Construction workers come at the crack of dawn, office workers arrive in shifts and sleepy teenagers meander in just before they close at 11 a.m. “We’re traditional,” says owner Richard Castillo when we ask him why his restaurant, which only serves breakfast, is so popular, “and there aren’t many traditional places left in Mexico City. We still cook using clay pots and 100 percent coal-fired grills.”

The sensation of entering A Cozinha do Manel (“Manel’s Kitchen”) in Porto is so similar to entering grandma’s house on Sunday that it almost confuses us. There is no one to greet you at the door, no cloth napkins folded over employees’ arms. We walk confidently, as we would at home, with the sense of comfort that only intimacy is capable of inspiring. From the wall, among the many clocks, vintage plates and drawings made on cloth napkins by customers with an artistic bent, dozens of familiar faces look back at us. They are actors, musicians, politicians and soccer stars all standing next to Zé António, the owner and manager – a confirmation of the restaurant’s popularity.

Tiko Tuskadze, chef-owner of London’s celebrated Little Georgia restaurants, with one branch in Islington and one in Hackney, shares her love for the food of Georgia, her home country, in her first book, “Supra: A Feast of Georgian Cooking.” The book, which was published in the U.K. in summer 2017 and in the U.S. and Canada in summer 2018, features the recipes and stories that have been passed down through her family for generations. We recently had the chance to chat with Tuskadze and hear more about her career trajectory, the work that went into creating Supra and the role that food played in her childhood in Georgia.

Porto’s very old and emblematic Bolhão Market has been under renovation since May. Now working in a temporary building, the market vendors are feeling a mix of enthusiasm and apprehension about the new structure – they are mostly concerned with how different it will be and how much tradition will be lost.

Take a small space in a strategic location, add two young and idealistic owners, and finish with traditional Neapolitan dishes made with the finest raw ingredients – this is Taverna a Santa Chiara’s recipe for success. Everything began with the passion of two young Neapolitans, Nives Monda and Potito Izzo, for specialty artisanal food products from the Campania region. These types of products are not necessarily hard to find – Campania is home to many excellent small producers. Yet high quality often comes at a high cost, especially when compared to mass industrial products sold through large distribution chains.