PrintA Few Street Vendors Are Not So Fastidious; Will You Still Partake?
Photograph by Jaci Berkopec on Flickr
Inside Edition is promo-ing tomorrow night's expose of New York street vendors, in which it is revealed that a few of them are not big on taking basic sanitary precautions. It strikes me as this is typical Inside Edition sensationalistic crap that will only succeed in casting all street vendors in an extremely negative light. I have found that most street vendors are pretty careful when it comes to food safety issues, and I would hate to see them all vilified because of the disgusting habits of a very few. What about you, serious eaters? What's your take on street vendors?
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6 Comments:
I think it is hard to keep to certain codes, especially for some ethnic vendors-Chinese places in LA were running afoul of laws due to the way they traditionally store and display certain roasted bbqd meats-a similar thing.
Then again, I have gotten very ill and seen really scary things from very dirty vendors.
I guess we need basic laws in place to keep food safe, but we need them to be realistic for vendors as well as hygiene-healthy.
wavewench at 10:38AM on 09/09/08
eh, i work in midtown where street vendors are nearly as plentiful as doe-eyed tourists, and i eat from the carts fairly frequently - never had a problem. what you want to do is go to the popular carts, the ones with lines! you're almost guaranteed tastier food (obviously all these people are here for a reason) and i dunno, it makes me feel like the vendors know what they're doing. i really doubt the majority of these guys are are massaging their feet and then serving my chicken on rice.
sarahlucy at 11:14AM on 09/09/08
I totally agree Ed... it's stupid TV shows like this that will give honest hard working street vendors a bad name.
That being said, being the Midtown "enthusiast" that I am, I'm very excited to see which vendor they caught picking their nose. My guess would be that it is not not one of the more popular vendors... you think the guys working inside the Kwik Meal cart have time to pick their nose? Not with those lines...
Zach Brooks at 11:28AM on 09/09/08
You may not like the journalistic style, but people deserve to know that some vendors have "disgusting habits" and they even deserve to know which ones. Perhaps a "list of shame" or some other way of distinguishing the many clean ones from the dirty ones would help us use the clean ones with confidence. Bashing "Inside Edition" doesn't make the problem go away, and if you are an ill patron of one of the disgusting few, you won't feel better knowing that many are clean.
gustoct at 11:35AM on 09/09/08
my falafel guy better not be on that show..though it might thin the lines a bit.
i've been going to street carts pretty regularly for over 10 years and i have never gotten sick. i avoid the ones that don't take much care in keeping things clean..it's pretty obvious at some of them. in those same ten years i've gotten sick from something i ate at a "gourmet deli" a few times. i just don't buy that carts are inherently dirtier than restaurants, which will likely be an assertion of this "expose". just like at restaurants, it depends on the individual vendor/owner.
sloppy at 2:09PM on 09/09/08
I've never gotten sick once in my life from vendor-cart food, and I've lived in the city for 30 years. The gyro guy in front of St Luke's, who I go to on a fairly regular basis, gets prety sweaty on hot summer days, but you know what? When I cook for my friends on a hot summer day, I get pretty sweaty, too. I wouldn't be surprised if some moisture transfer occurs, but I've never made a friend sick, either.
klg19 at 9:25AM on 09/10/08