Car Cuisine: do you indulge? favorite food?

[oneidaone]

Empanadas, chicken fingers, French toast sticks, criss cut fries extra well done, taquitos, pizza bites.

I have a 140 mile commute - 70 miles each way - 1 1/2 hours when the traffic is good.

Much, much longer when it has jelled because of an accident, rain, idiots, car chases or lookie-loos slowing down to look at something happening at the side of the road. 

I am not alone.  There are obviously a lot of munchers on the road at the same time as there is always a line of cars in the drive-thru lanes at McDs and Jack's at Crown Valley Road off the 14, especially in the morning.  I don't speed because it wastes gas and the CHP has really been cracking down on speeders and about time too.

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You are my kind of eater! Actually I have indulged OFTEN in MacDonald's various burgers

often Happy Meals while on the road. However, I always go into a parking spot to put on the

extra ketchup and spread the fries out on the seat over the bag they come in....I have been

guilty of eating those 99cent tacos from Jack in the Box (why I am admitting any of this I can't

imagine.....) and sometimes eat those chicken strips from Arby' with the honey mustard sauce.

When I go to Safeway if they look fresh/crisp I indulge in a few chicken strips......I try to wait

for lights and since I am always on the way home from Pilates/exercise I always have a towel

so I don't ruin my shirt with condiment/grease stains.......as I put it in my neckline of my

t-shirt.........A hui hou O.K. I admit to mostly always getting one of those killer brownies

from Neimans when I shop at the mall with an iced coffee and with ritual open it carefully

breaking the store seal/stickers that hold the cellophane.....A great break when stuck at a light

which is the only time I take a bite of any of the mentioned, funny how other times you don't want a light to change if you're not eating.......

[BarbaraY]

My usual car snack is a Snickers bar or Payday after shopping. Only problem with the Payday is the peanuts fall down your shirt.

My other snack is those nasty cheese crackers filled with peanut butter.

Sometimes I will just buy a small packet of peanuts and dump them into the cup holder and nibble at them.

Do we have a pattern here?

Almost forgot. If I buy a Jumbo Jack in the drive through the fries last me just till I get home to eat the burger. Don't think I've ever made it home with my fries.

Edited December 4, 2005 by BarbaraY (log)

[Gifted Gourmet]

Actually I have indulged OFTEN in MacDonald's various burgers

often Happy Meals while on the road. However, I always go into a parking spot to put on the

extra ketchup and spread the fries out on the seat over the bag they come in....I have been

guilty of eating those 99cent tacos from Jack in the Box (why I am admitting any of this I can't

imagine.....) and sometimes eat those chicken strips from Arby' with the honey mustard sauce.

When I go to Safeway if they look fresh/crisp I indulge in a few chicken strips......I try to wait

for lights and since I am always on the way home from Pilates/exercise I always have a towel

so I don't ruin my shirt with condiment/grease stains.......as I put it in my neckline of my

t-shirt.........A hui hou O.K. I admit to mostly always getting one of those killer brownies

from Neimans when I shop at the mall with an iced coffee and with ritual open it carefully

breaking the store seal/stickers that hold the cellophane.....

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Man, you have this routine down pat! Do you do a tasting menu between lights?

Car cuisine ought to have its own magazine .. if it doesn't already .. thanks, oneidaone, for this post!

[milli]

Here in India as we drive along the beach we have bajji walas selling street food. Its here that we pick up puffed rice mix called 'bhel'...made of puffed rice,onions,tomatoes,peanuts,coriander leaves,lemon juice and green chillis.Tastes great..

[Lilija]

I don't eat while driving very often, but I eat lots of meals in my car. I love my car. I live near an excellent waterfront, with a stunning view of the NY Skyline. I hit up a local deli, for soup and a sandwich, quite frequently, and sit in my car, down at the beach, eating, listening to the radio, and reading. It's the most serene way to have a lunch break, ever.

[mcattaneo23]

I find it a bit repulsive to even watch someone eat in there car. This is such a sad commentary on how little we as Americans value the community/food experience. I would like to see the same statistic for eating in cars in Europe...it must be much lower. America needs to find a way to slow down and get back into the kitchen instead of the car!!

[Carrot Top]

That sounds like a great idea but most likely it will not happen short of a catastrophic event that affect the entire country.

Plus it is a fact that many people do not enjoy cooking. Strange but true, and it will not be changed no matter how often or how loudly the pulpit of cookery love is approached by the bringers of the message.

Personally I hate the mess that is made in the car, but we continue to eat in the car when we "have to".

Therefore my preference would be to see more light, healthy, low-salt/sugar/fat foods available with less obnoxious tons of wrapping papers that they come in - along the roads that we travel.

Plus a new small business with a niche in "quick-cleaning" car interiors from eating in them would be a great idea, too.

Yeah - with an ice-cream parlor attached to it.

That way we could go from the car straight to the ice-cream parlor for a quick little bite of ice-cream while someone quickly and efficiently cleaned out the car from the last meal we ate in it before we trundled back into the car to proceed wherever it was that we were going.

Where were we going anyway? Work? The mall? Oh, yeah. I forgot. A restaurant. That's it. That's where we need to go.

Gobble gobble.

[Rebecca263]

... America needs to find a way to slow down and get back into the kitchen instead of the car!!

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No, thanks, I'll continue to find those little out of the way places, selling their fish sandwiches(hello Lakeland!), carrot cakes(on a backroad, in a gas station in in mid Florida, of all places!), sandwiches on home made bread (a turnpike exit convenience shop in Pennsylvania!) or french fries, and we'll continue sitting in our car, eating those delicious finds. And, I'll continue to cherish my childhood memory of my dad piling us all into the Corvair during a rainstorm and taking us to the beach, where he bought hotdogs and bottled Coca Colas at the pier and then we all sat in the car, eating those really great grilled dogs, while dear Dad told us we were the safest we could ever be during a thunderstorm, in the car, because the tires grounded us!

[avocado]

My sister and I, in our teens and early twenties, spend alot of time together in our shared car. No matter what we were eating (and we were often eating), it was understood that the passenger feeds the driver:unwrapping, breaking off bites, dishing up spoonful- the passenger was responsible for her food and the driver's food. She was older, so she usually drove while I fed.

I have fond memories of stopping at the 7-11 on the way home from highschool or at a convenience store on the long drive home from the far-away college we both went to. She would start up the car, and just a few hundred feet down the road she would stick her hand out to me, not looking at me or pausing in conversation, trusting that a morsel of food would be placed there for her to pop in her mouth; still talking, with her mouth full, she would stick her hand out for more. I miss those times in the car with her now that we live 1000 miles apart.

She probably doesn't know how many bites of her food I've snuck while she was keeping her eyes on the road.

[annecros]

My sister and I, in our teens and early twenties, spend alot of time together in our shared car. No matter what we were eating (and we were often eating), it was understood that the passenger feeds the driver:unwrapping, breaking off bites, dishing up spoonful- the passenger was responsible for her food and the driver's food. She was older, so she usually drove while I fed.

I have fond memories of stopping at the 7-11 on the way home from highschool or at a convenience store on the long drive home from the far-away college we both went to. She would start up the car, and just a few hundred feet down the road she would stick her hand out to me, not looking at me or pausing in conversation, trusting that a morsel of food would be placed there for her to pop in her mouth; still talking, with her mouth full, she would stick her hand out for more. I miss those times in the car with her now that we live 1000 miles apart.

She probably doesn't know how many bites of her food I've snuck while she was keeping her eyes on the road. 

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Yep, that's the "navigator's" job. Done it more than once on road trips with hubby.

The big unique car food for my bunch is, believe it or not, Cornuts. That is the only time I am aware of that the kids and hubby ever eat them - on a road trip. I don't care for them, personally, but just smelling them from a distance reminds me of so many long talks on long drives.

[sassybat]

i only eat in the car when we go on road trips (i.e. the 5-hour trip to vegas), and it's moreso for the munching aspect than because we're hungry.