• World's most delicious street food

    Kieren Messenger

    Food safety is a point of pride at the Djemaa el-Fna, Marrakesh's central square, where there are frequent inspections and leftover food is disposed of nightly.

    By Travel + Leisure

    What’s a trip to Ho Chi Minh City without a steaming bowl of pho eaten curbside, while perched on a tiny plastic stool? Or a stroll through Mexico City without a stop for tacos al pastor, dished up from a wheeled cart? For connoisseurs of local cuisine, streetside dining is a way to explore delicious foods, many of which are unavailable in restaurants, prepared by dedicated specialists. But it has its risks: of the 70 million Americans who travel abroad each year, it is approximated that 46 percent report varying degrees of food- or water-borne illness. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in fact, advises against consuming street food in developing countries. That’s why it’s as important as ever to be armed with some street-food savvy when you’re on the road.


    Slideshow: See where to go and what to order

    Follow the locals
    In a busy marketplace, you can often tell if a stall is reputable based on the line. But pay attention: Mexico City street-food guide Lesley Téllez avoids stalls that draw a primarily young — and less cautious — clientele. Instead, she looks for “a mix of workers, policemen and older customers.” And knowing local mealtimes means you can beat the crowds to get the freshest foods.

    Cleanliness counts
    “Keep an eye out for signs of cross-contamination,” says Douglas Powell, professor of food safety at Kansas State University. Check that prep surfaces look clean, cold foods are kept on ice, and raw foods are stored separately from cooked. Téllez prefers stands where vendors who handle food don’t touch money.

    Related video: 'Around the World in 80 Plates'

    Bring your own utensils
    There’s no way to tell if chopsticks or forks have been given more than a quick rinse.

    If possible, watch your food being cooked
    And avoid precooked seafood in particular, advises Jeff Koehler, author of the forthcoming cookbook "Morocco" (Chronicle Books; $29.95). Dishes containing raw meat, and ice-based drinks or desserts such as ice cream that may have been made with unfiltered water, are off-limits. Reheated rice is also a breeding ground for bacteria.

    Look for cooking methods that reduce microbes
    Pickling vegetables and using citrus juices can reduce the levels of dangerous microorganisms, Powell points out, but they won’t remove your risk entirely. Some spices, such as chiles, turmeric and epazote, a pungent Mexican herb, also have antibacterial properties.

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  • World's most traditional holiday foods

    Jun Belen / Getty Images

    In the Philippines, bibingka is a Christmas breakfast pastry of rice flour and coconut milk that's baked in banana leaf–lined terracotta pots, topped with kesong puti (local white cheese), grated coconut and sometimes even salted duck egg.

    By Howie Kahn , Travel+Leisure

    Long before you sit down to Christmas dinner in Ethiopia, preparations are under way. Farmers buy lambs early to fatten them up for yebeg wot, the thick, buttery berbere-spiced stew that locals know and expect.

    Slideshow: See what's eaten where for the holidays

    After all, holiday meals are judged by a different set of standards than any other kind. You may like your dish dry because that’s what pleased you as a child. Memory is the juicier thing. Such sentimentality is a shared global matter, but food traditions are decidedly local — and reveal much about a destination.

    The same old, same old won’t necessarily be available abroad, so if you’re leaving home for the holidays, embrace the opportunity to savor the season as celebrated in another part of the world. Every place has specialties, prepared with love and idiosyncrasies similar to your own.

    In Quebec, the thing is tourtière, a meat pie. Maybe the crust on the one you’ll eat will be slightly burned to pay homage to the baker’s favorite uncle. There should be quirks. If you’re eating Jansson’s temptation in Sweden, perhaps it’s a version of the casserole with extra cream because one year, way back, some kid knocked the whole bottle in and, hell, it worked.

    In Japan, it just wouldn’t be New Year’s Eve without eating a plate of stretchy buckwheat noodles to bring prosperity and ensure a long life. The longer the noodles, the better. Visitors can join in this age-old ritual at Tokyo’s Washoku En, among countless options.

    The urge, just about everywhere on Earth, is to eat what you’ve always eaten for the holidays and just as you’ve always eaten it. The quality of a dish is never measured in objective terms. Technique? Taste? Presentation? It hardly matters. The question, globally, is how does the food make you feel?

    Fortunate is probably the optimal answer. To come back to the same table and appreciate the same flavors with the same people — whether it’s curry devil on Boxing Day in Singapore, or that thing that’s been in your family since long before you have — is the benchmark of the season. Repetition, this time of year, is exactly the point.

    But if you’re away from your own traditions, we bet the local ones, wherever you are, will make you feel just as sated — and may even inspire you to introduce a new dish back at home.

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  • America's best tailgating cities

    Classicstock / Alamy

    Philadelphia is a sandwich town, and its famously rowdy fans go for local favorites such as cheese steaks, meatball subs and hoagies.

     

    By Lawrence Marcus, Food & Wine

    The term refers to partying in a parking lot, but college and NFL football fans across the country treat tailgating as over-the-top celebrations with enviable food.

    Slideshow: Where the best tailgating cities are

    "We want to dispel the notion that it's a college kegger party," says Paula Dillon, a Chicago Bears season-ticket holder who, with her husband, John, has been tailgating outside of Soldier Field for close to two decades. Despite their allegiance to the Bears, the Dillons plan menus that reference the visiting team, like barbecue when the Kansas City Chiefs come to town.

    Cooking food influenced by the opposition is common practice, but stadium-goers also prepare their own regional tailgate foods among the ubiquitous hot dogs, burgers and grilled steaks. Patriots fans take pride in bringing New England seafood; Mexican food dominates at Chargers games in San Diego; and Southern tailgaters, like those on Duke University's campus in Durham, N.C., favor fried chicken, deviled eggs and hush puppies.

    The recurring theme across tailgating scenes nationwide: devotion — not just to football teams, but also to the pregame tradition. Loyal fans like to make the case that their city pioneered tailgating: "We have some unscientific evidence that it was invented here," says Aaron Popkey, a Green Bay Packers spokesman.

    Perhaps the strongest arguments come from the students of the University of Mississippi. Ole Miss calls its dedicated tailgating grounds The Grove; fans serve fried chicken on silver platters, and it's not uncommon to see students tailgating in their Sunday best: dresses and high heels, suits and ties. Alumni even talk about the venue in spiritual terms: "You've probably heard it called 'the holy grail of tailgating' or 'the Mecca of tailgating' or some other religious metaphor that, in truth, is not overblown," says alum Matt Eichelberger.

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  • Universities with the finest eats

    Boston College's The Chocolate Bar serves just about every chocolate pastry imaginable, including chocolate cake, and even has a chocolate fountain.

    By Kate Krader, Food & Wine

    Who doesn’t want to attend a school that’s best in the country at something? Devotees of the U.S. News & World Report report can brag about their classes at Harvard or Princeton. Anyone big into BCS college football rankings will want LSU and Alabama as their alma mater. Not me. I’d want to be at a school that’s got bragging rights in the food world. While I work towards my dream of ranking the country’s best food schools (anyone who wants to help, let me know), I’ll call out a few with highlights ranging from sausage making to chocolate fountains. 

    Master meat crafting: University of Wisconsin at Madison
    Last year, UW launched a meat science program. When you’re done with the two-year program, you earn the title Master Meat Crafter. It’s a funny name (it suggests that you become the beef equivalent of an ice sculptor) but a cool program: Students learn all about sausage making and bacon curing, both in the classroom and with hands-on meat processing work. Among the benefits: after a two-day meat curing lesson, you sit down to eat what you learned.

    Vegan heaven: UCLA
    I didn’t arbitrarily assign this award. Last year, UCLA won PETA2's Most Vegan-Friendly College Contest. (PETA2 being the student branch of PETA.) At UCLA, food-service workers regularly met with the student-run Bruins for Animals. The school offers dozens of vegan options, including veggie chicken fingers and vegan chili cheese dogs; for dessert, there are vegan cappuccino cookies. If you hate that UCLA has this honor and another school doesn’t, the bracket for Most Vegan-Friendly College for 2011 is live right now; as of this writing, UConn and University of Colorado at Boulder both made it to the second round.

    Sustainable superstars: Pomona College, Claremont Calif.
    If you didn’t know I was talking about a school dining program, you might think I was describing a high-end NYC restaurant. Since the fall semester began, the school has sourced about 65 percent of its seafood from fisheries that don’t practice overfishing. All the coffee and tea is fair trade organic, all eggs are sourced from cage-free chickens and most of the meat served is humanely raised. I wonder if they have a good wine list to go with that.

    Best tailgaters: University of Mississippi at Oxford
    This school has a motto that I admire: "Ole Miss may not win the game, but we will always win the party." By all accounts, the Grove — the 10 acres of Ole Miss where fans set up magnificent tents, with well-set tables and multiple direct TV screens inside — is tailgating masterclass, as long as you’re not looking for a whole hog roasting on a spit next to a keg. There are no RV’s, no grills and technically, no beer; much of the food is catered, and most of the drinking is hard alcohol, which is absolutely fine with the local authorities.

    Chocolate champions: Boston College
    If I’d been aware of this program as a senior in high school, I know where I would have applied early decision. BC operates The Chocolate Bar, which serves just about every chocolate pastry imaginable: chocolate cinnamon rolls, chocolate croissants, chocolate chip muffins, chocolate sundaes and multiple kinds of chocolate cake. What takes them beyond is the make-your-own-fondue chocolate fountain, which I thought was basically illegal after your super sweet 16.

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  • US foods that are tough to find abroad

    Matthew Mead / AP

    Thanksgiving dinner, an American tradition, is a rare find overseas.

    By Ryan Murphy, Budget Travel
    Traveling provides ample opportunities for indulging in culinary experimentation. But what if you just want a familiar snack from the homeland? Not so fast — you might be surprised by just how foreign some of our most common foodstuffs are to our friends overseas.
    Some criticize the very concept of eating American chow abroad when there are so many ethnic cuisines to enjoy; others will ignore the naysayers and happily pour another bowl of Cheerios for breakfast. Regardless of what category you fall into, there's something interesting about knowing which of our foods are foreign to most other cultures.
    Without further ado, here are six foods you'll be hard-pressed to find when you travel (and the specialty shops where you can track them down if you find yourself nursing a case of the munchies).
     
    American candy
    From Swiss chocolate to raw sugarcane, local sweets have a place in every society. Americans have a dizzying array of domestic candies to choose from, but in other countries their appeal — and thus shelf space — doesn’t necessarily measure up. But if you happen to be in Prague, The Candy Store has you covered, thanks to an extensive collection of sugary U.S. treats from Nerds to Marshmallow Fluff. American holidays aren’t neglected, either: if you can’t find a decent pumpkin pie in time for Thanksgiving, The Candy Store will mix one up on-site using another staple of American pantries, Libby’s Canned Pumpkin.
     
    Brownie and cake mix
    Good luck finding a brownie mix (or a pancake or cake mix) outside of the U.S. In London, the American Food Store fulfills a niche market of American cravings. Inspired by holidays in the States, the proprietors of this store aim to offer reasonably–priced and legitimate American products — not the adulterated cereals and sodas they claim are sold under the same brand names in the United Kingdom. However, perhaps the store’s greatest boon to traveling Americans is its store of dry goods: aside from prepared foods, the American Food Store sells baking necessities like Gold Medal flour, Clabber Girl baking powder and, of course, mixes from Duncan Hines and the First Lady of American cooking, Betty Crocker.
    Gumbo and jambalaya
    The culinary ways of Americans (hot dogs, takeout Chinese) may be a mystery to Parisians, but at least Judith Bluysen understands. Since 1990 this transplant from New York has been selling American groceries at her store, Thanksgiving, in one of the gastronomical capitals of the world. Although her store stocks American products of many stripes, Thanksgiving specializes in Cajun food — fittingly so, as Louisiana culinary traditions owe much to the French. Bluysen’s on–site Cajun restaurant has been shuttered for years, but her Paris grocery still hosts Zatarain’s gumbo and jambalaya mixes, Tabasco sauce, Cajun sausages and filé powder for that authentic New Orleans taste.
     
    Turkey
    With Thanksgiving approaching, the thoughts of all Americans — even those abroad — turn to turkey. Tokyo is a paradise for food aficionados in many ways, but some stores and restaurants that claim to offer American food don’t necessarily live up to the promise. (Even the Denny’s outlets differ from their beloved American model.) Some items, like the aforementioned bird, are simply hard to find in their unaltered state. Nissin World Delicatessen delivers the real deal and more. The supermarket stocks its shelves with items from many western countries — German pickles, French cheese and even Italian bottled water — but its greatest contribution to the western crowd may be the store’s “Meat Rush” section, which sells meats from the United States, New Zealand and Australia, including “hard–to–find” cuts of turkey and lamb. And if you don’t mind mixing your cuisines, feel free to slap some southwest flavor onto your Thanksgiving fowl with some Nissin-supplied American barbecue sauce.
     
    American beer
    Remember the Chinese toast “gan bei” (“dry the glass”) — it may come in handy at Jenny’s. A store with the humblest of origins, Jenny’s began as a fruit and vegetable stall in 1988 and has become a multi–outlet chain scattered throughout China’s capital. While Jenny’s still prides itself on its fresh produce — and even offers a rent–a–plot program at its new organic farm — its list of international groceries is extensive. Visitors jonesing for a familiar tipple are particularly in luck: Jenny’s offers bottled and canned beers from more than 15 countries, including American brews like Samuel Adams and Longboard Lager.
     
    Cheddar cheese
    It may not have originated in the United States, but Americans adore this British import — some even enjoy it alongside apple pie, the most quintessentially American food of them all. The rest of the world loves its cheeses as well, however, and poor cheddar can get lost in the mix. Cheeseheads in Buenos Aires can head for a branch of the aptly named Al Queso, Queso, which offers a menu of international sandwiches and wines along with its wide variety of cheeses.
     
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