Food Desert: What it Looks Like From the Inside

Location: New Haven, Connecticut- Union Train Station
Time: Past Lunch
Food options:

Layover Time: 1.5hrs

Outside the first thing I saw was this:
I didn’t cross the street to investigate.

All the surrounding buildings were:
Housing projects

I asked a parking garage attendant for his recommendation and he said, “There’s a Dunkin Donuts in the station.

“How about not in the station?” I said.

“Well, I don’t ever really leave the booth.” he said.  “I get 30 minutes.

We’ll call this guy, Bobby.  

Bobby was round enough to fill up the whole parking attendant booth and I felt angry for him.

BOBBY has 30 minutes for lunch, PEOPLE, and all he has to choose from is DUNKIN DONUTS and SBARRO.  He fills out the entire attendant booth.  WTF!
I had stranded myself in a full-on food desert.  There wasn’t even a dirty window Chinese food place around.  There had to be something missing.

The United States Department of Agriculture says a food desert is a low-income area with low access to healthy affordable food.  

But I say, it’s a ten-minute walking radius from anywhere.  Who typically walks more than ten minutes to get something to eat?

Just to see how pissed I should be for Bobby and all those people in that neighborhood, I started walking.  I passed this:
And this:


The neighborhood was swarming with police.

So moments later I bumped into this tall drink of water.


He directed me to downtown New Haven where I was met with a surprise:



A sign confirming ethnic food as our salvation from the “American Diet.” But it was closed.

I ended up in a place that looked like this:

that served stuff like this:


The whole round trip clocked in at about 45minutes. Fifteen minutes longer than Bobby’s break allowed, but I don’t think the extra few minutes was the problem.  Do you?

3 comments:

  1. I guess we really take for granted how much great food we have around us. Oh dear, that's not good about Bobby :(

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  2. Fortunately, the three airports in my area all have fabulous restaurants inside. But I live in an area that is filled with tourists most of the time so it really doesn't count. Must admit I've never had your experience in the U.S. But sure have elsewhere.
    (Yes, I usually make my own crust, especially when making something for company. Once in a while for a blog post I use prepared crusts.)

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  3. Great reflective post and so true when you are 'in the middle of nowhere'. To bad the Indian was closed but not bad on what you found. Tall drink of water is good too ;-)

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FOOD IS ONE OF THE MOST VISCERAL ASPECTS OF A CULTURE; IT CAN BE EXPERIENCED WITH NO LANGUAGE SKILLS, NO GUIDE, AND MOST TIMES WITH VERY LITTLE MONEY.