Hi, it's Mark Pittman. Welcome to Food. As always, you can reach out to us at

food at mark bitman.com, send us questions, answers.

Suggestions, anything you like, and we will try to get back to you will periodically

answer questions on the air.

And let's get going. We'll get back to that conversation in a minute, but first I want to talk about

something that lots of people ask me about when it comes to global cuisines.

There is something magical about eating global cuisines. There is something magical about eating a

cuisine in the place where it originated. One of the reasons for that is that the

dishes that define a cuisine are built around the produce that's native to a

place. It's why the fet that's native to a place.

It's why the feta and tomato and a Greek salad

taste so perfect in Athens,

or the artichokes in olive oil in Rome are to die for.

They have a certain sweetness and tang that you can get close to but not easily replicate.

And not surprisingly, one of the best ways to get a sense for how something should taste is to visit a region of the world and

sample a dish in several forms from lots of different neighboring areas.

Then you can appreciate the local variations as well. And the most efficient way to do that for me at least is the first-class

experience of a regent cruise. I was able to do that on our recent all-inclusive

tour of Asia. I had a hankering for seafood, well I always do,

seafood that you don't get easily in the US, and I had just an incredible experience in the

fish markets of Busan, just overwhelming varieties of fresh seafood.

With more than 500 destinations worldwide, Regents' options are endless.

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