Once a week VendrTV profiles a fan of the show and street food in a section called Cartivores. This week’s Cartivore is Jessica Amason, the co-creator of This Is Why You’re Fat

Name: Jessica Amason @jessamason

Age: 27

Location? What’s street food like there? New York City (East Village) – The street food here is an institution! I especially love my neighborhood because of the Tompkins Square green market on Sundays, it draws all the local food trucks including my personal fave = The MUD Coffee Truck.

Occupation Co-Creator of This is Why You’re Fat, Viral Media Editor at BuzzFeed.com and columnist at Huffington Post

Favorite type of food? Almost any kind of seafood!

Least favorite type of food? English / Irish food, I think. A little to heavy for me (of course I’m not counting London’s endless supply of amazing Indian food, that I could eat any day)

Favorite street cart of all time? Hard to choose! I’ll give you two:

1. The churro trucks in Madrid were once my biggest weakness: churros (fried dough), sprinkled with sugar and served with cup of warm thick coacoa for dipping. That on a fall day in Madrid will knock your socks off. And don’t even get me started on the dulce-de-leche stuffed churros!

2. One particular street cart remains near and dear to my heart: JB’s in Athens, GA. A true staple of the southern music town. The sign read: “JB, The Polish Sausage Man with Comeback Sauce!” and every night JB would park next to the 40Watt Club (home to bands like REM, B-52s, Pylon, Of Montreal) and feed hungry show-goers. The line for his polish sausage dogs sometimes rivaled the line for the club, due in no small part to his special “comeback sauce,” as he put it: “the sauce that makes y’all wanna come back!” Sadly the city eventually shut him down.

Craziest thing you’ve eaten?Probably whole pickled ox tongue in Ushuaia, Argentina….I prefer one set of taste buds in my mouth at all times, thanks.

Is there anything you won’t try?My policy is to try it all…..at least once.

If you were to open a street food cart, where would it be and what would you serve?
A paella truck. All the spaniards out there will probably kill me for saying this since making paella is a beloved art form across Cataluna and requires meticulous preperation and a long cook time. But hear me out! There are many spanish beach towns that make a quick-ready versions in personal paella pans. If this could be brought to the streets, I’d be the first in line!
I know there is a guy in Paris starting this up:
http://www.ipreferparis.net/2009/10/francois-the-paella-man.html
But let’s do this NYC! There are so many variations and they’re great year-round: I’d go with seafood paella for summer, Valencian paella (veggies and chicken) for winter. And all that saffron? Yes please.

Any interesting street food stories? One of the more interesting street food experiences I’ve had was in San Sebastian, on the northern coast of Spain. It’s a port city built around a small cove and along the waterfront local women serve fresh sea snails plucked straight from the docks. A paper cone holds about 15 snails. Each snail is eaten by pulling it from inside its shell with a tailor’s pin. Thankfully the local women demonstrated how to prick and pull the snail in one motion — and, once you get past the whole snail thing, they made for a refreshingly salty treat.

When did you first have street food? Tell me about it?
My first encounter with street food was at local fairs and carnivals. Until the age of six, my family lived in rural Virginia and local craft fairs and traveling carnivals brought some of the best all-american street food to town. As a child, my personal fave was the candy apple on a stick, dipped in caramel sauce of course.

Got any street food tips? My only tip would be don’t judge a book by its cover! Sometimes the divey-est looking street carts can produce the yummiest grub.

Is there anything you’d like to ask your fellow Cartivores? What is the most unique ethnic street cuisine in NYC?

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