About Us

Scott & Laura at a roadside teahouse in Turkey

What we areLaunched in December 2011, Eat Your World is a guide to regional food and drinks around the globe founded on the principle that what you eat depends on where you are.

Our mission is to spotlight foods and drinks that are native or traditional to particular places around the world—and tell readers where to find them. Whether you’re in Bologna or Nashville, we believe that tasting the distinct foods and drinks of a destination is absolutely essential to experiencing it, as they illuminate that region’s unique culture, history, geography, and lore. Moreover, regional foods are your CULTURAL GATEWAY, the dishes and drinks that you get you deeper into a culture, leading to interactions with local people and incredible travel experiences (trust us).  In this context, “distinct foods” also includes those that are locally grown, sourced, or made, as local soils, waters, and climates are likewise inextricably linked to local foods, traditions, and the people consuming them. Our umbrella covers everything from “typical foods” to regional handcrafted beers.

 We want to help fellow travelers find these truly authentic eats, but we’re also interested in culinary preservation, tracking down those more esoteric dishes that provide a glimpse of a city’s past life—our brief on-the-ground foray into food anthropology. Thus, Philadelphia isn’t just cheesesteaks; it’s also fried oysters with chicken salad, a popular 18th-century lunch in the city’s taverns. And escamoles, an Aztec delicacy, are just as important to Mexico City’s gastronomy as tacos al pastor.

By identifying and celebrating these unique local foods—which, in turn, celebrates and supports the local people, their cultural traditions, and their livelihoods—we hope to encourage others to seek them out for themselves.

Want to know more? See our FAQ and Press pages.

What we doWe tell readers what to eat in a given location. And though EYW revolves around food, not restaurants, we always state where to find the foods and drinks we feature. Street vendors, bakeries, holes-in-the-wall, high-end restaurants: EYW doesn’t discriminate if the food speaks to the place in which it’s found.

We also provide recommendations for how to burn it off because, despite what appears to be a penchant for BBQ, beignets, and empanadas, we are huge proponents of a healthy lifestyle that incorporates lots of physical activity (and eating those delicious things in moderation). Finally, we recommend where to stay—after all sleeping, like eating, is essential to any trip. 

How you can participateWe invite all users to get involved in two ways:

• By uploading photos of distinct regional foods and drinks around the world. We aim to create a truly global database, and we need your help to do so!
• By writing stories about food memories to share online. We want to learn all about the world’s culinary traditions, and know that stories about food often convey the most sense of place.

(Participation is free; in order to do either, you just have to sign up.)

Who we areEYW is powered by the ambitious appetites of Laura Siciliano-Rosen and Scott Rosen, a travel-food writer and photographer (The New York Times, New York, Draft, Rough Guides) who have long counted eating new foods in new places—whether a faraway country or an unexplored restaurant down the street—among the greatest pleasures in life. They live in Jackson Heights, Queens, one of New York City’s most diverse and delicious neighborhoods (where they offer guided food tours). Check out their EYW user profiles here and here.

Eat Your World has been written up in The New York Times, Lifehacker, and more! See our press here.