Plates from everywhere

Soaked tapioca with peanuts, green chili, and lemon. The Navratri and vrat plate that is actually good, not merely allowed.

Eggless, dark, and heavy with soaked fruit. The cake Kerala Christian kitchens bake in December — cloves, rum-soaked raisins, a tight crumb.

Fine vermicelli simmered in milk with dates and nuts. The Eid morning bowl — sweet, pale, and meant to be shared.

Slow-roasted gram flour, ghee, and sugar, rolled while warm. The Diwali tin. The tin that never lasts until January.

Steamed rice-flour dumplings filled with coconut, jaggery, and cardamom. Ganesh Chaturthi’s offering, and the best thing in the house that week.

Crispy potato and poblano tacos on warm corn tortillas, with onion, cilantro, salsa verde, and lime.

Coconut milk split with green curry paste, Thai basil, and lime leaves. Hot, sweet, herbal — Bangkok in a bowl.

Saffron rice layered with spiced potatoes, cauliflower, and fried onions, sealed and steamed until every grain is perfumed.

Smoky, tomato-red rice cooked until the bottom just catches. West Africa’s most argued-over, most loved pot.

Carrots, chickpeas, and squash slow-cooked with cumin, ginger, and preserved lemon under a conical lid.

Pasta, pecorino, pepper, and pasta water — four things, infinite technique. Rome’s midnight plate.

Rice in a scorching stone bowl, a ring of seasoned vegetables, crisp tofu, and a lake of gochujang.

A clear soy-scented kombu broth, springy noodles, braised tofu, nori, and scallion — Tokyo’s weeknight bowl, made vegetarian.

Chickpeas in a dark, tangy tomato-onion gravy. The north-Indian dhaba classic that turns a tin of beans into dinner.

Andalusian-style tomato rice simmered with potatoes for a bright, one-pan Mediterranean supper.

A quick North Indian potato-tomato curry spooned over plain rice for a comforting weeknight plate.

Roasted wheat flour, ghee, nuts, and a little sugar. The prasad of Krishna’s midnight — satvik, crumbly, eaten by the handful.

Potatoes and butter beans roasted in lemon, garlic, and oregano until the pan juices are a sauce. Greek Sunday, vegetarian.

Saffron rice cooked wide and thin in a pan, socarrat on the bottom, artichokes and beans on top. Sunday on the Mediterranean.

Hearts of palm in lime, onion, and chili — a Lima leche de tigre — with sweet potato and crunchy corn.

A clear star-anise broth poured over rice noodles, tofu, and mushrooms, with a forest of herbs at the table.

A sharp salad of tomatoes, cucumber, herbs, and fried pita, dressed with lemon and a dusting of sumac.

Summer vegetables cooked until they taste of olive oil, garlic, and themselves. Eat it warm or cold, like a Provençal would.

Silken tofu in a chili-bean sauce that numbs, heats, and comforts at once. Weeknight fire from Chengdu, with minced mushroom.