«There is nothing better than street food»

Street food was interesting to me even as a child. I still cannot forget the pie I bought on the promenade in Zelenogradsk, after which I suffered for three days. But since then, the stomach has hardened. Maybe the pie became a baptism of fire? Somewhere in Colombia or Mumbai, I like most of all at six in the morning, barely opening my eyes, to come to the local market for breakfast with merchants. They do not have time to eat during the day, so the markets serve hearty hot food in the morning that boils or simmers all night. And this is the most ingenious food: soups, stews from offal — intestines, stomach. Imagine a huge cauldron, from where a two-meter intestine or liver is taken out with a hook …

Street food is unsophisticated. You go to the Ballaro market in Palermo, and it’s a pleasure to look at the guy who sells the famous spleen sandwiches there. There is a hefty gray layer on the counter, he cuts off pieces of it and dumps it into a pan with boiling fat. Then he takes a fresh bun, cuts it into two parts, puts a napkin on the bottom part, puts a sizzling piece of fried spleen on the napkin, sprinkles with coarse salt, closes it with the top part of the bun, turns it over, removes the bottom part, removes the napkin, into which the fat has soaked in the meantime, pours sandwich with lemon juice, closes the bun and gives it to you. There is a more glamorous version of the same sandwich — fresh ricotta is added to it, which triples the cost, up to 4 euros.

Amazing street food in Turkey — balyk-ekmek under the Galata Bridge. Fish sandwich — grilled sardine, mackerel or mackerel. True, it all smells like fish oil. But there is one old master, to whom they specially come for balyk-ekmek. It adds a secret ingredient (licorice, I believe) that counteracts the smell of fish oil. Conservationists forgive me, in Bangkok’s Chinatown, I can’t help but eat a bowl of shark fin soup. Or eat a swallow’s nest. You don’t get that in Europe anymore. But the story was much stronger in the Faroe Islands, where I was offered salted whale oil, blubber. One of those things you can’t eat!

At home, I often cook ceviche, Peruvian street food. The main ingredient is diced white fish fillet with red onion, salt, lemon juice and red pepper. And that’s it. That lemon juice, saturated with fish proteins and pepper, which remains after ceviche and which you drink at the end, Peruvians call «tiger’s milk.» It is believed that this cocktail has a brilliant effect on potency and health in general, and a young man could drink this liquid on the way to a date. Now Peruvians specially prepare «tiger’s milk», it has also become one of the dishes of street cuisine.

Peruvian food reflects the traditions of the Incas who came from the high mountains — fried guinea pig, llama meat, hundreds of varieties of potatoes, nightshade, corn, quinoa (The best quinoa grows at an altitude of 4 meters). There is a huge painting of The Last Supper in the Cusco Cathedral. There in front of Jesus on a platter is a fried chinchilla. Domesticated guinea pigs were commoners’ food, and wild chinchillas are considered a delicacy.

There is also a tradition in Peru that arrived with the Japanese from Okinawa. At the turn of the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries, they fled to Peru from earthquakes and famine. Japanese cuisine, combined with Peruvian cuisine, gave rise to a new tradition of «kuchina nikkei». It’s funny that sushi is also historically a street food. Samurai, heading to the court, ate fresh sushi from street stalls. Very convenient: you get both rice and a piece of fish at once. You take it with your hands! Nobody ate them with chopsticks. He ate one thing — they serve another. The best sushi bars in the world are now organized as counters from where the master serves you fresh sushi. Ideally, sushi is eaten from his hand: the master asks to put sushi with fish on the tongue. You need to fill the sky with rice, hold your breath for a couple of seconds, taste the aroma of fish and only then chew.

Street food is by no means fast food! No matter where in the world you go to a fast food chain, you will find the same food for about the same price. There is only one ingenious fast food, purely national, and that is pizza. Two Neapolitan pizzerias a hundred meters from each other will serve you, although called by the same word, but completely different pizzas. Each pizzaiolo has its own secrets, its own stories.

In the Sicilian market or at the Galata Bridge, there is nothing to fear: people are in front of you, people are behind you, they buy everything and immediately eat their sandwich, no one writhes in agony in the roadside bushes. But in India or in North Africa … One of my friends, I remember, drank orange juice with ice in a square in Marrakesh and came to her senses for several days.

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In contact with street food, one must strictly observe simple safety rules.

1. In southern countries, you can not drink unsealed water and something with ice. As the Hindus say, one who has lived in Mumbai all his life can drink water from a tap or from a puddle there. From infancy, his body got used to the biochemical composition of this water. But if, for example, a resident of Calcutta drinks tap water in Mumbai, he will, at best, have an upset stomach.
2. In a street establishment, it is better to eat foods that have been heat-treated. Why is it not scary to eat soup? Because it boiled for two hours: there are no germs! Even if it is made from not very high-quality meat, everything has been boiled out for a long time.
3. It is useful to carry a flask of whiskey in your pocket. A sip or two gives you the confidence that you are disinfected. I also carry a bag of chili peppers in my pocket every time I travel. This protects against many problems.
4. I will never eat cut fruit on the street. Neither in Cuzco nor in Paris is it dangerous.
5. In countries with a hot climate, I gladly become a vegetarian. Cereals, cereals and vegetables — our everything! You take a bowl of rice and you’re full. In addition, rice is also an ingenious healing food. Take rice with some vegetable curry and you will be happy.

There is another story here: in places where fish and meat are expensive, even a spoiled piece will never be thrown away. Arriving, for example, in India, tourists begin to groan and gasp — “how dirty it is here!” – and eat only in hotels. But there is more dangerous food in the hotel than on the street. Because an Indian cook will never throw away a fish that has been thawed once: he will freeze it again, and then defrost it again. It’s the same with meat. Therefore, in hotels it is just very easy to catch an infection. The guest moved in today and left tomorrow. And the street vendor works for his customers so that they return to him tomorrow. He is always in this place, from birth to death. His reputation is more important to him.

In general, street food is as different as people and countries. And thanks to her, I now know what a national character tastes like.”