Is Street Food the New Bacon?
Where’s the love for the truck selling Sponge Bob ice cream? Street food has definitely entered a new era, maybe even reaching the faddish extremes of bacon. Last week the Wall Street Journal was yet another publication to notice that the new breed of street food “is aggressively gourmet, tech-savvy and politically correct.” While I’m all for crème brûlée from a kitchen next to a steering wheel, it’s hard not to wonder how this new-agey mobile food culture will affect the old guard. What about the non-organic, questionably hygienic vendors without Blackberrys or Facebook accounts? Are they going to survive this moment? In some cities it’s not an issue. Chicago, for example, doesn’t have a truck selling quiche Lorraine or hormone-free gelato. In fact, the city is still pretty limited to vendors selling elotes (roasted corn on the cob), hot dogs, ice cream, and sno-cones. According to Chuck Sudo of Chicagoist, “the city may never experience the same cutting-edge street food culture becau
