Greedy DMs - Lauren Servideo

"Honestly at least 1–3 times I ate dog biscuits."

I met Lauren Servideo IRL this week, and boy was I starstruck, more so when she started eating unpeeled quail’s eggs. Shells on. She also took some home to her parrot. She makes comic videos which mix theatre-kid weirdness with something almost chilling. They are very, very funny. She’s currently working on an adaptation of Sunset Boulevard, about an internet comedian who is driven insane after failing to make the transition from Instagram Reels to TikTok.

Lauren about to eat quail eggs and their shells on Wednesday

What are you gonna have for lunch?

I try not to go out to eat during the week but I decided to give myself permission to get some takeaway today. I am thinking spicy tuna roll from this local spot, Mizu.

Where is it?

In the East Village, where I live. Ugh I just realized there’s a ‘sushi burrito’ place near here that I love, that went viral a few months back, and I wonder if I should get one instead. It’s bittersweet to watch a favorite spot get the TikTok treatment - I miss floating in there without a line, but I’m happy for the business.

Sushi burrito?

I knew I was going to regret calling it a “sushi burrito” like a glib American. But I wasn’t sure if there was a Japanese word for it. Of course there is, it’s onigirazu! Essentially, like… a magnified sushi roll. All the same elements, but bigger.

Oh! I assumed it was self consciously a suhi-burrito place… there’s a chain in London called SushiDog.

Did you grow up in New York?

Upstate! Albany/Schenectady.

I found it so spooky, driving upstate, all the Native American names. The reminder that’s so constant it is easily forgotten.

Yes! Schenectady in Iroquoian language, Mohawk Nation specifically, means “the place beyond the pines”. And I think Albany is Dutch.

What is Dutch food? Gun to my head I have no idea.

I have no idea either.

I could not save my family if a man with a gun said he would not kill them if I could name one Dutch food.

There’s a big horse meat culture. Herring, this stuff ‘lobscouse’, which is eaten in Liverpool too, and was brought there by sailors from the Hanser League. And in Liverpool the name was shortened to ‘scouse’, which is what someone from Liverpool is called. My favourite Dutch saying is ‘hunger is the best sauce.’

Oh that is a good one.

It’s certainly very Protestant!

It’s very Catholic Upstate, and extremely Italian and Irish. And of course some Shakers and Quakers.

Did you feel the culinary heritage of the Italian and Irish?