Street food vendors have operated in the shadows for a long time in a legal limbo, but that hasn't stopped voracious eaters from finding and writing about them.

Lucas Peterson wrote a post for Eater LA earlier this year about a corn seller in Lincoln Heights, east of downtown.

There was then a backlash from people who said, among other things, that by putting a spotlight on this vendor Lucas was exposing him to the police.

"The argument that this could put street vendors in danger and we shouldn't write about them," Peterson told Take Two, "I think that kind of sweeps them under the rug in a way that preserves the status quo."

Javier Cabral offers a different perspective.

He's also a food culture writer, and wrote the recent piece, "Why this food writer refuses to review street vendors."