A popular treat offered by Los Angeles push cart vendors, fresh fruit sprinkled with salt, chili powder and fresh lime juice makes a quick, healthy snack or a vibrant side for a barbecue. Recipe below.

A story in the current Chicago Reader reminds me once again that Los Angeles just gets street food. In “Legalize It,” Claire Bushey reports on the plight of Chicago’s mostly Mexican push cart food vendors, who face fines and other legal problems because the city won’t license them. Even though it already issues licenses to the same kinds of vendors in Chicago’s parks. And even though it would allow the city to regulate sanitation and collect license fees and taxes.

By contrast, LA embraces street food as part of its culture. Mama’s Hot Tamales Cafe, for instance, is more than just a charming, welcoming place to enjoy an everchanging menu of regional tamales from all over Mexico and Central America.  According to the Institutes for Urban Initiatives that operates Mama’s, it’s a training ground to help low-and-moderate-income residents “begin a career path toward success in the culinary world.” For many, the road to success leads back to the street, operating their own street food business. Significantly, Mama’s is “approved by the County of Los Angeles Department of Health Services and the City of Los Angeles Building and Safety Department.”

Street food is everywhere in LA, available in a dazzling array of flavors and cultures. From all stripes of Latin American to fiery curries, tamales, tacos, chicharrones and the latest sensation, Kogi BBQ, Korean fusion tacos sold from a truck that announces its locations via Twitter. And then there’s this fresh, slightly spicy fruit salad that Marion first discovered outside a fabric store in LA’s fashion district. But it is truly ubiquitous, sold on random corners all over Los Angeles County. Continue reading “Lively, refreshing Mexican fruit salad brings LA street food to the dinner table” →