Food on the Street...

The wife and I watched No Reservations last night. As usual Tony sampled street food in his travels. Which always makes me wonder why we don't have street food around here. A hot dog cart does not count. Is it a product of our food culture? It seems every place Tony visits around the world has it. What makes us different?

I will qualify my post by saying I have not been to the larger cities in the U.S., such as New York or LA, so they may have more options I do not know about. But all the cities I have been to do not have the street food options I see on No Reservations. Instead they all have countless fast food places selling nondescript tasteless meals. Does the food industry have anything to do with this? Are there laws in place preventing street food from being sold?

Having freshly prepared food should not be so hard to find. Especially at a reasonable price. Instead we have prepackaged and heavily processed food everywhere. And we are the worse for it...