How to Survive Shopping (Ruleshorror)

13 Rules for Surviving Street Food

So maybe I've put you off the bakery but you've still worked up an appetitive while shopping. Or maybe you're planning to travel somewhere fun and interesting, and want to try the local fare. In any case, you find yourself gazing upon street food, whether that takes the form of a "permeant" stand, a food cart, booth, or truck.

Part of traveling is trying new and exciting foods. No objections to that. Just ask the ingredients - you may be consuming a little more than spice, rice, or hotdog.

No street food vendor is truly permeant (is anything, really?). It may disappear as soon as you leave. If you turn around and it's gone, or you try and visit again the next day and can't find it, you're good, it's not you. If it poofs away in front of you, from your field of vision, that is personal and that is a problem.

Occasionally, you can find street food that talks back, because it's still alive when you buy it and before the vendor fries it (seafood, bugs, other small critters). That's fine.
3a. If a single critter starts speaking to you intelligibly, buy it but don't eat it. Free it. The Being will owe you a favor and this will end well. Leave soon after though, the vendor may have objections.
3b. If a group of small critters (i.e. a horde of crickets) simultaneously speak to you in one voice, leave immediately.

Asking vendors for recommendations is a good idea. Eating what they recommend is a great idea. Avoiding what they say not to try is an EXCELLENT idea.

On a similar note, it's okay to ask how to eat a particular food. Follow any directions to use unfamiliar utensils, as the utensils occasionally have a mind of their own can get aggressive when disrespected.

If you have an animal you have an affinity with (your favorite animal, an animal you identify with, your "mom animal" like that SNL bit, or your Patronus or whatever), don't eat that animal. You will have really weird and potentially dangerous dreams.

Basic food safety still applies when you're outside-gloves, masks, and the ability to clean things are all still important for mundane reasons. But it's also important to get food from a truck or cart with a vendor who regularly washes their hands for another reason: the constant interaction with people around the world, with different culture's mythos and monsters and curses following them, means that outdoor dining establishments can have a lot of supranatural baggage.

Don't rip off the vendors. Basic decency AND a good way to avoid a curse your witch or psychic back home can't fix.

If the vendor seems off, and you suspect them of being something not-quite-human or not-quite-alive, don't be alarmed. Repeat out loud how much money you are giving in exchange for your order to confirm. This serves two purposes in your interaction with the vendor:
9a. It's likely loud outside and one or both of you are possibly operating in an unfamiliar language. Sure, the guy selling me the vegetarian Döner has pretty good German but mine is a work-in-progress and the streets of Berlin are REALLY loud.
9b. In a supranatural situation, this makes your transaction with what Being or Other you're dealing with really clearly just the purchase of Pho for regular local currency.

If you have dietary restrictions, carry a card with the restriction in writing in the local language - you don't want to be trying to ask where to find kosher meat and attempting to pronounce for the first time at the front of a line of 14 people on a hot, noisy day.
I do encourage you to attempt ordering in the local language but know what you're going to say before you get there. You don't want to say something offensive and find yourself in all sorts of trouble. 

The places and times locals are eating at are the correct answer. Beyond getting a more authentic culinary experience, you want to be at the vendors at the right time. Don't go looking for them at the wrong times - some vendors need to check Pockets to get their supply and it's only a problem if you know about it.

Respect local cultural food taboos. If it's a place nobody eats cow, don't eat cow. If the local vibe is no bacon, no bacon. If they don't mix seafood and cheese, don't mix seafood and cheese.

Part of the joy of street food is interesting fruit. It occasionally bites back. If you think the fruit is fighting back, eat it. Assert your power over it, because once you've bitten into it that's the only way to rid yourself of its haunting spirit.

For additional clarity: when I say "Others" I generally mean human/humanish/human ghost type of things (which can be benevolent or malevolent), "Beings" I use to refer to forces/entities with some kind of agency or goal that are not humanish (usually but not always malevolent), and by "Pockets" I mean pretty much any bizarre space that you dip in where the rules aren't quite the same as our normal world, but you aren't fully somewhere else either. Not all odd places with rules are Pockets (I don't know of any malls or movie theaters that are, for example), but all Pockets are odd places with rules.