Your plane is leaving in 15 minutes. You skipped lunch. You can only buy trail mix for $4 on board. And that trail mix is in a bag just large enough to fully awaken your hunger. What do you do, hot shot? What do you do?
I grab a teeny chicken panini from Argo Tea in O'Hare Airport. The miniature baguette -- a bit larger than a banana -- comes in a paper sleeve. It's the right size for eating and running. Small bites that can be consumed between expletives. While it's well-suited for transportation, I'm nailing down raisins, peanuts and candy-coated chocolate pieces 15 minutes later. The teeny panini is eminently portable; but it would fail to satisfy the hunger of a smurf.
Here we come to the challenge to find good walking (or in this case, running) food. What's portable is not always satisfying. And what is satisfying can result in unwanted stains or an abundance of trash.
The panini is not a bad place to start. It's the default offering in Paris, easy to handle and filled with butter and cheese. It isn't difficult to see why it's caught on in other places. But the panini can have ingredients spilling out the sides and require more attention than is prudent while walking.
Substitute a tortilla for a baguette and you get street tacos. Available from walk-up windows on Southwest Boulevard to Michael Smith's menu, street tacos could be the easiest walking food to find in Kansas City. The challenge: You can carry only one at a time and you'll need to eat three or four to feel full. So unless you've got a street taco caddy -- although this taco shell holder might work -- you're out of luck.
I'm going with street nachos (or tacos). Although I've never eaten a bag outside of a tailgate, I've seen these used as fuel for pub crawls and the ensuing crawl home. The common element attached to this dish is likely drinking. It's essentially chili in a bag of corn chips.
You'll also need to find a spork. I believe KFC, Taco Bell and Panda Express still utilize the spoon-fork hybrid. In a pinch, just pinch the bag and tilt. Surprisingly filling, walking nachos are the container and trash bag. Or you could always follow the airlines' lead and put together a bag of GORP -- good old raisins and peanuts.
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