Psychogeography: Street Food

Posted: Tuesday September 29, 2026

Psychogeography? If you're scratching your head, check out this brief blog post here.

New York has a way of making you question the reality of events you previously could not have ever imagined, let alone assumed were physically possible. One evening, while walking to Port Authority Bus Terminal, I witnessed a man lying on his side across the sidewalk, throw up an entire carrot. I'm not talking about vomiting up some soft, stewed carrot slices marinating in a warm puddle of stomach bile. No, an entire carrot seemingly slid in the wrong direction up this horizontal man's esophagus, made a 90-degree turn, and then just casually popped out of his open mouth, teeth nearly peeling the raw vegetable before it rolled off the curb and into the gutter of the street, below my very eyes.

I remember thinking to myself at the time, "Now that's real street food".

It's just one of those scenes that you could never expect or prepare yourself for. It unfolds so abruptly right before your eyes that you're left as impressed as you are disturbed. I suppose the reality is that bizarre events like carrot hurling perhaps aren't so odd in retrospect. If anything was truly weird about the occurrence, it was that the man got up off the sidewalk immediately after dry-heaving a carrot straight out of his throat, then went about his day as if nothing had happened. And, well, so did I.

This NYC carrot-puking event occurred well over a decade ago, yet it remains vividly engraved within my mind, and I think I'm better off because of it. That one moment has sort of inspired me to document street food whenever I see it. I can wrap my mind around how scraps of food make their way to the ground or perhaps fall out from the garbage truck. But what continues to inspire me enough to document street food is the sheer variety of legitimate full meals that end up literally on the street.

An entire tray of pasta that looks like it was yeeted out the window by a disgruntled caterer. Or on more than one occasion, the ice cream cone that was lost to the sidewalk below, representing the worst day of someone's life. I've seen entire McDonald's meals given to the Concrete Gods, and Sweetgreen salads dumped out so neatly across the pavement, I've concluded that someone must be coming back for that. Yet no one ever does. I mean sometimes the rats do, in all of their furry gluttony.

When most people think of street food their minds probably imagine the $5 tourist hotdog; well perhaps $4 if you don't have an accent. Or maybe the cups of fruit and mango slices, or even the churro ladies who seem to find their way into the hottest, most miserable NYC subway stations. Me, however, I'm much more interested in the dishes truly served curbside. After all, it is the horizontal chefs who make the sidewalk their personal kitchen to prepare a meal truly made with love... but perhaps best only consumed by the eyes, unless of course, you're of the furry, gluttonous variety.

I'd like to imagine some disgruntled office employee rolling over this dumpster full with bagels to one of those goofy office brunch parties.

I'm not sure if this is dog vomit, human puke, or just an unlucky bowl of cereal. Unfortunately, I did not notice a bowl or spoon anywhere nearby the scene, so I'm leaning toward the former explanation.

Here we have an entire tray of pasta that seems like it was thrown against the brick wall. I suppose pasta is one of those meals that is probably somewhat difficult to royally fuck up and I'd wager that if you did fuck it up, one might be angry enough to throw it against the wall. Regardless, I found this street food scene in Trenton, and Trenton is weird.

I decided to include this photo simply because it's one of the oddest ways I've ever seen pizza served. Eagle eyed viewers may notice the A-Treat soda bottle in the photo and be able to geographically pinpoint this meal. Regardless, apparently in Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania, they serve their pizza "by the cut", which while weird, wasn't too bad. In retrospect it makes lot of sense for a city where no one knows how to pronounce the name to serve pizza in a way no one ever asked for. 10/10, would try again.

Honestly, if I got McDonald's, my first thought might be to toss it on the ground too. A solid move really. Even their current CEO doesn't approve of the "product" masquerading as food they sell.

A moment of silence for this cone!

I feel like Sweetgreen is the type of meal you buy to look healthy and then when no one is looking you toss that shit to the sidewalk and pick up those McDonald's Nuggets off the ground.

Sometimes the rats can't even stomach some of the shit we call food. But yea, it's the fluoride in the water killing us. Anyway, would you like 80 more grams of sugar in your drink?

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