MazeCuicine

Ever tried eating a pancake without maple syrup? It's like eating a slice of cardboard. Poorly prepared cardboard. In fact, Canada's gift to parents everywhere -- throw some maple syrup on the kid's broccoli and see what happens -- makes just about anything worth trying. Pass the cardboard, please.

If Malcolm Gladwell says it's a perfect food, then it's a perfect food. Let's face it, anything that can convince 2-year-olds to eat their carrots rather than spitting them onto the floor is worthy of not just a "delicious" title, but a "miracle of persuasion" title, too.

Beef is slowly simmered with coconut milk and a mixture of lemongrass, galangal, garlic, turmeric, ginger and chilies, then left to stew for a few hours to create this dish of tender, flavorful bovine goodness. Tasting it fresh out of the kitchen will send your stomach into overdrive, but many people think it gets even better when left overnight.

This assembly kit of a dining experience is a thrill to DIY enthusiasts everywhere. Step 1: Behold the meat sizzling on a fiery griddle. Step 2: Along with the meat, throw side servings of capsicum, onion, guacamole, sour cream and salsa into a warm, flour tortilla. Step 3: Promise all within hearing range that you'll have "just one more." Step 4: Repeat.

A Filipino national dish, lechón is a whole young pig slow-roasted over charcoal for several hours. The process makes for tender meat and crispy skin. It's prepared on special occasions throughout the year.

You can't visit Singapore without trying its spicy, sloppy, meaty specialty. While there are dozens of ways to prepare crab (with black pepper, salted egg yolk, cheese-baked, et cetera) chili crab remains the local bestseller. Spicy chili-tomato gravy tends to splatter, which is why you need to mop everything up with mini mantou buns.

Nothing really prepares you for the stench of one of the strangest dishes on Earth. Like durian, smelly tofu is one of Southeast Asia's most iconic foods. The odor of fermenting tofu is so overpowering many aren't able to shake off the memory for months. So is the legendarily divine taste really worth the effort? Sure it is.

The sea is lapping just by your feet, a warm breeze whips the tablecloth around your legs and a steamy pan of paella sits in front of you. Shrimp, lobster, mussels and cuttlefish combine with white rice and various herbs, oil and salt in this Valencian dish to send you immediately into holiday mode. Though if you have it in Spain, you're probably there already.