article via partner site Divine Caroline by Brie Cadman

Most people agree that one of the best things about traveling to new places is sampling new foods and eating out. But what I miss most about Asia and Latin America isn’t “eating out” in restaurants, it’s “eating out” on the streets.

Long before Anthony Bourdain was doing his No Reservations TV show—which introduced viewers to exotic and delicious delicacies of foreign cultures—many of us were tromping around the globe doing our own tasting. And many of us were backpacking, which meant that we were young, or adventurous, or semi-broke, and usually all three. Street food, the kind that’s served up in a mobile cart, a stand, or a roadside hut, with prices equivalent to pocket change, made economical and logistical sense. But even better, it was the most interesting and flavorful food to be found.

In Thailand, as in many low and middle-income countries with less sanitary red tape than ours, variety, mobility, and an entrepreneurial spirit characterize the street food scene. Sometimes the food comes to you, as it does when a vendor selling mango, pineapple, green guava, and papaya (with or without chili), wanders by. In Oaxaca, Mexico, bellowing hawkers tout their tamales and elotes (corn on the cob covered in cheese and spice) as they wheel them by. Inevitably, the mundane becomes exotic, and it’s not unusual to see fried cockroaches the size of your hand, pig parts, or small mammals being sold as edibles.