Street Food

 "Street" is another empty word thrown at you to get you to buy "food" with a connotation that it's somehow a more authentic version of whatever you were having before. Tacos that affect a pedigree are Street Tacos. Roasted and spicy corn on the cob - an old fixture at barbecues, festivals and flea markets wherever Central Americans were present- is now given a hip makeover as Street Corn. Fine eating it is, but it misses a point.

In Miami, five "Street Corn" just like this can cost $42 in a casual restaurant. 

"Street" labeling is a marketing ploy designed to invoke the beloved, fiesty, ethnic or working class portable meals that one may buy at a roadside stand or at a window.

Despite many forms across continents, these dishes seem to have a common pattern: a seductive envelope or core of carbohydrates surrounding or surrounded by something oily or proteinacious: meat, often greasy or aggressively seasoned, cheeses, legumes, cream, chilies, crackly skin, more oil, or even another carb within the carb. In less squeamish nations, add organs to the list. Save the last item, it's the things we crave when we have a truly irresistible craving and don't make any pretense of it.

But of course affected unpretensiousness is the height of pretense, and condescending too when one labels the ingenious, portable, and utterly sublime foods of industrious immigrants as being of "the streets." Then this food is given a makeover and a large markup, repurposed and taken off "the streets" to supposedly more civilized establishments, so there is hypocrisy on top of pretense and offense too.

The real authenticity in tacos, arepas, pupusas, choclo, samosas, shawarma, fritas and fritangas, along with their irresistible appeal comes not from the pretentious labels attributed to them but in the vigorous souls of those who have traveled here from distant lands, bringing with them all of their tradition and skill.