In northeastern Minnesota, dotting a landscape called the Iron Range, there are cities with names such as Hibbing, Virginia, Chisholm, Nashwauk, and Eveleth, and in these cities are bakeries, delis, bars, restaurants, and church fundraisers that sell delicious things beginning with the letter “p.” Delicious things that have been part of the region’s identity since…

“No forks,” he said. I thought I’d made a reasonable request, but the server at Kreuz Market in Lockhart, Texas, stared me down like a cook in a junior high cafeteria. “Knives and fingers only,” he said. “We’ve been doing it that way for 96 years, and we’re not about to change now.” I exchanged…

“First I turn the heat way up. Then I dial it back down.” Hoisting a 40-pound burlap sack of green chiles into the gas-fired roaster at Chile Fanatic in Hatch, New Mexico, Jesus Soto explained how he prepares the surrounding valley’s famous peppers. The flames roared; chiles tumbled in the rotating wire cage; the thick,…