Street Food- what is the safest?

sarapheena

As departure date looms (next Monday!), I am growing tired of my husbands constant reminders against eating or drinking anything from roving vendors. This is historically one of my favorite things to do when traveling but I do wish to be smart about it. Can anyone make suggestions as to what might be safest? Also how safe would chai be in these types of situations?

the opoponax

Idly and sambar is always a pretty safe bet. Nothing too likely to be a vector of disease, as long as it's reasonably fresh. You don't even have to worry about rancid oil. The rice is easy to digest, and if you're not keen on the spicy stuff you can eat the sambar or not depending on your taste.

Not sure how widely available that will be in the north, though.

Chai is generally safe.

As a general rule, the things you REALLY want to watch out for are unboiled water, raw fruit and vegetables, and to an extent rancid oil (which will make you feel icky in the short term rather than actually giving you a disease). Another good rule of thumb is to choose popular stalls, as they're likely to be cleaner and the food will be fresher. Vegetarian items are much less risky than anything with meat.

Also, work your way in gradually. You don't want to make a run for the lamb kebab your first day in India. I had no problem with ice in drinks, but you might want to avoid it at first. One of my major bouts of travel paranoia was unthinkingly ordering an ice coffee at Cafe Coffee Day in Mumbai and trying to figure out what to do when it came in a tall glass chock full of ice. Needless to say, I survived it. But you might want to avoid that by not stupidly ordering iced versions of hot drinks!

PeakXV

Your husband is a wise man. To be honest I thought that the 'street food' was mainly for the poor or unfortunate 'street people' and didn't have an inkling that tourists coveted it until I ventured onto IndiaMike. Certainly if you came to my neighborhood in Canada with the preservatives, MSG & whatnot added to the 'streetfood' to sate the legaleagles, I would advise you to stay away from it for obvious reasons. My Indian colleagues told me the same thing in India - 'go ahead and eat it, suit yourself, but we never will'. I'll have to admit, as an analogy, that food does seem to taste better when out camping, fishing or on hunting trips .... but that's probably more to do with the open fire cooking methods, fresh air, the 'roughing it' feeling, & the ethusiastic hunger that moderate exercise brings - not the fact that food is in any way superior, handled/prepared more hygienically, or have any orgasmic, secret recipe that is unavailable anywhere else.

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Don't go to India ~ Pre-trip Warnings & Misconceptions?

the opoponax

Which could easily be said in the same way most middle class New Yorkers will insist we never eat fast food. Because staying with well-to-do friends, I definitely remember them having street food as a bit of a 'guilty pleasure' on a couple of occasions. There have also been many posts here from foreigners living in Indian families describing the same thing -- see for instance a post called something like Help, I'm Addicted To Pani Puri. Which is something even I wouldn't eat!

ScarletLSG

I went to India with just one promise to my husband ... NOT to eat the street food. That lasted about 2 days. It smelled TOO GOOD to pass by. I went to the REALLY busy places, and always order stuff that I could see was steaming hot. Now, near the end of my trip, I ate a place in Old Delhi. I haven't got a CLUE what I ate, but it was served with some greenish water poured over it. The water came from a big tub, that had a chunk of ice floating in it. They gave me three little deep fried and crunchy dumpling things and then poured the ice water over it. YUM, whatever it was!!

My only "illness" came after the last day of the wedding we attended. It was the first time we'd eaten food that was mysteriously appearing from the kitchen in small little serving bowls. Definitely wasn't hot and although I ate sparingly ... while still trying to be polite ... the food didn't sit well with me -- or ANY of the other wedding guest. The entire crowd ended up having tummy problems.

ScarletLSG

tacita

in west bengal, i gambled well on samosa--ain't much that'll survive boiling oil! (that is, unless you can't stomach anything fried in the first place) i bought them from a busy stand and made sure to ask for some right out of the pot, as opposed to those that appeared to have been cooked in advance and stacked to the side.

up north in sikkim, i often had momos from stands, always without incident.

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CaitlinECox

When it comes to ice and water in chains and other restaurants frequented by the upper middle class, you're probably fine. Those places usually filter their water. Never a guarantee, of course, so you should always ask. And it's possible that even if they filter, that the filter is inefficient or dirty.

In Delhi, street food is enjoyed by people from all walks of life. There was an uproar last year at a city law that would limit cooking on the streets, with people angry at the idea that limiting street food was just caving in further to a homogenized global fast food culture. Tons of newspaper editorials and magazine articles...

If you want to try some of the stuff with raw veggies/ water in Delhi, the safest places are in GK I-M block market and Khan market. Both have stalls with signs up specifically saying they use mineral water to make their pani puri and other snacks.

A good clue is to look for well dressed women and families eating at a given cart. They're usually pretty persnickity about cleanliness.

chAos

You had pani puri. There are plenty of people who swear that "hygiencially prepared" pani puri doesn't taste nearly as good!
You can definitely make it at home (if you've got an Indian store nearby to buy the puris) and remember Old Delhi.

PeakXV

So all castes will eat any street food without conviction? Or is there 'street food' and then 'street food'? What about allergies to different oils, soy etc. & residues there of - is this a topic that the street chef can discuss accurately with his customers?

<Totally ignorant on these special treats.>

tacita

or, as one member suggested some years back:

lick the street when you first arrive - then you'll expose yourself to everything and start building your immunity immediately!

machadinha

Er, what can I say. I ate what I liked there and if I thought it looked and smelt and felt appealing, and if others around me obviously seemed to enjoy it.

Only time I really felt sick was when I think I'd eaten too much.

That tells you precisely nothing of course; others strike up some horrible disease no matter what high-class restaurants they limit themselves to (or not).

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machadinha

Mod stepping in: Folks, getting at each other's throats has never been what this forum is about. Members are kindly referred back to the Forum Rules if they need any guidance on this.

No more of this will be entertained, and further postings to the effect on any threads will be deleted without further notice, just as this thread itself may or may not be cleaned up.

Thanks.

[Edit note: Thread has obviously been cleaned up by now.]

Non-mod note: I'm sure the original poster will have found it all highly instructive and delightful too, and find all her trepidation gone.

the opoponax

Peak - not sure about the caste issues. I don't even know the castes of the various well-off people I stayed with who ate street food from time to time. Significantly, these folks ate street food as an occasional treat and not as a main source of nutrients.

I would guess that devout Brahmins probably don't eat street food, no.

two_roads

i would also think that veggie street food is considerably safer than kebabs etc ...

kristinm

We ate street food all the time - sticking to the rule that if its a busy stall and you stick to the freshly cooked stuff it will probably be OK. I doubt many germs could survive the boiling oil and the green chillis! We did however (sorry Opoponax!) use our hand sanitiser before we ate anything - reasoning that the germs on our hands hadn't been boiled in oil!!!!

Sometimes we waited for a newly cooked batch of something rather than taking a piece that had been sitting there for a while.

And we drank Chai everywhere!!!! And at all times!