Rideshare Foodie making tracks for Nova Scotia

HALIFAX, N.S. — “How do you pronounce it — donair?” Kreskin Torres wants to know.

The self-proclaimed traveller, video blogger and U.S. army veteran from Baltimore, Maryland — who is known as the Rideshare Foodie — has traveled all 50 states in search of signature dishes and the stories of the people who make them.

Now he’s planning a visit to Nova Scotia — a place he didn’t think was real when he first heard of it.

Torres recently posted on a Nova Scotia Facebook page asking locals for recommendations for where and what to eat. Donair was the dominant response in the comments.

“I’m definitely interested in it,” he said. “But the only thing I’m nervous about is I’m not a huge cream-based sauce guy. So that’s going to be interesting.”

Hitting the road

Torres, 35, grew up loving food. He joined the army in 2013 but left on a medical discharge the year after. When he got out, he decided he wanted to go travelling.

His first trip was to England, where he explored different cultures and food.

“And I thought I want to come back and do that in my country, I want to explore my country,” he said in a phone interview this week. “Every state in America is like its own country, or at least each region.”

In 2016, he started driving for rideshare companies (Uber and Lyft) and he’d pick up people from the airport and they would share their stories of their homeland. 

“I was like, man, I want to go to these places but that’s a lot of airline tickets.”

But the idea struck him to take his job on the road and explore the food and culture across the U.S. He raised money along the way and managed to visit all 50 states in over seven years — all in a 2012 Honda Accord, he lovingly named Ava.

It has 419,000 miles on it.

He shares his finds in a video blog on his Instagram account, TikTok and posts on Facebook.  And he has a book coming out soon called Rideshare Foodie: 400,000 Miles Cross-Country.

He’s made a specialty of finding those incredible, out-of-the-way spots and mom-and-pop restaurants. And he does it by pulling into town and talking with people on the street.

Often, he’ll walk into a police station and ask for restaurant recommendations. It’s not hard, he said, because everybody likes food.

“Wherever I go, I tell people ‘hey, I want to learn about you’ … That’s what’s missing today — there’s a selfish mentality of you’ve got to do this for me. Forget about me, I want to learn about you.”

Chili and/in/on cinnamon rolls. What?

Torres has been interviewed on more than a few American TV stations. He inevitably gets the question: what is your favourite dish?

“My favourite is chili and cinnamon rolls,” he said. “In the Midwest, they do a bowl of chili and a cinnamon roll, and they serve it at the same time.”

It’s such an everyday dish, they throw it in school lunches, he added. 

Some people eat the chili and cinnamon rolls separately, others alternate bites and yet others will peel the layers of the rolls and dip it into the chili.

“That’s me. I’m a dipper.”

And, rarely, someone will pour the chili over the cinnamon roll or use a cinnamon roll as a bread bowl and pour the chili inside.

Nova Scotia, a made-up land

Torres said he likes to go see things for himself “‘cause that’s what my mama taught me.” Rather than hearing stories about what life and food is like in far-flung places, Torres said he always wants to go experience it personally.

So when he was building his website in 2018 and it defaulted his location to “N.S.” for some reason, he was intrigued. He said he just assumed N.S. was “made up.”

“I didn’t know it was a real place. I just thought it was a placeholder,” he said.

But Torres said ever since he began investing the province online, Nova Scotia has been high on the list of places he wants to go. It will be his first visit to Canada.

“I was like, man, I’m adding this to the list because this is somewhere I’ve never heard of before. I’ve never heard anybody around me talk about it.”

He plans to visit after American Thanksgiving (or possibly in the spring) but he’s not sure yet if he’s going to fly or make Ava take the trip. Until then, he’s investigating what’s on the menu here. He said his experiences here will be in a future book.

“A lot of the dishes have a story about where it came from and what was going on at that time, which I’m pretty sure the donair has,” he said. “So that’s going to be interesting to learn about and it’s a great way for people to learn about where they live and where they’re from.”