Some foods are so delicious, a journey to the end of the earth would be a dietary mandate, or, on a smaller scope, would necessitate a cross-country road trip. Food is the impetus that makes us mobile; the hunter-gatherer in us tells us so. Traveling across the United States to find the best kitchens on wheels, author Heather Shouse captures a moment in time, during this new wave of food truck fever, to tell the stories of the people trucking along with their talents and traditions in tow.
Anyone who thrills to the chase of tracking down a kimchi quesadilla or a crème brûlée crepe should pack Shouse’s Food Trucks: Dispatches and Recipes from the Best Kitchens on Wheels, when embarking on the trek. Part travel companion, cookbook, and counterculture history book, Food Trucks delivers on more than 100 trucks and carts from coast-to-coast. By no means is it an exhaustive compendium, Shouse advises, as new trucks are coming and going, menus are rotating, and permits are changing, but it is a selective source. “I wanted to find distinct concepts and make sure the trucks weren’t duplicative,” says Shouse, a senior food and drink correspondent for Time Out Chicago and bona fide BBQ judge. But the most important thing was that the food she found had to be delicious. Inclusion in the book meant each truck had to meet Shouse’s criteria of serving signature, delicious dishes and being run by people with a story to tell.In North Hollywood, she met Hortenzia Hernandez, the Oaxacan woman in her early sixties working the pestle and mortar at Antojitos Mi Abuelita. When asked for her mole recipe for the book, Hernandez declined. “That one is sacred,” Shouse explains. “People come every week just for her Oaxacan recipe.” In New York, Fatima Khan of the Trini Paki Boys Cart was also reluctant to share her recipe; Shouse says Khan has never owned a measuring cup and that many of the people she met along the way operated homestyle trucks and didn’t actually know how to come up with a recipe. With some persuading, Shouse got some of the truck owners to warm up to the idea and divulge their recipes, and if they didn’t, Shouse reported on observations in the kitchen, paying close attention to the care each cook put into their food. “I really wanted to sit and get to know these people and know why they chose to open their food truck. And then I wanted to be able to take it into the kitchen.”
But why Food Trucks now? The demand is definitely there, and there’s been an undeniable explosion in the emergence of food trucks, but Shouse insists this is not just a fad. “A fad is something that is temporary,” she says. “Food trucks as a model is not new. It’s old school; look at the trucks that popped up in the ‘50s, especially around military bases. Taco trucks in L.A. have been operating since the ‘70s.” Stating that half of the new restaurants that open up fail and that this same logic can be applied to food trucks, Shouse suggests that in order to succeed, the best trucks have to narrow their focus. “Trucks that have twenty items are just not sustainable. You have to find one thing and make it your signature.”
It wasn’t long ago when it seemed like spotting your favorite moveable feast was your Halley’s Comet, and social media has really made it possible for these kitchens to succeed. “With new concept trucks using Twitter, it’s a perfect storm,” says Shouse. The link between the online “follow” and the literal “follow” being such a natural one: “I think it’s popular now because of its intersection with social media.” So when possible, she includes Twitter handles, cross streets, maps, offering a compass for your quesadilla quest, a bacon beacon, if you will.
Being a food writer is not without its challenges; it took a year for the book to get published, and new kitchens have already popped up, finding their niches in the truck world. Wanting to really capture the movement between 2009 to mid 2010, when the food truck movement was really going off, Shouse had to take the opportunity and just pack up and go. At a time when public interest in food is at an all-time high, she must also move quick while delivering a book that is as gorgeous a cookbook as it is a functional travel guide. “We’re experiencing an insane renaissance; the public is crazy knowledgeable about food with all the blogs and forums,” she says, but going a few steps further than even a fantastic blog, it is Shouse’s profiles of the people at the wheel that make this a brilliantly cool tribute to the energy of the food truck armies and their loyal communities countrywide.
Author Photo By: Martha Williams
