With food-truck fever sweeping the nation, intrepid journalist Heather Shouse launched a coast-to-coast exploration of street food. In Food Trucks, she gives readers a page-by-page compass for finding the best movable feasts in America.
From decades-old pushcarts manned by tradition-towing immigrants to massive, gleaming mobile kitchens run by culinary prodigies, she identifies more than 100 chowhound pit-stops that are the very best of the best. Serving up everything from slow-smoked barbecue ribs to escargot puffs, with virtually every corner of the globe represented in brilliant detail for authentic eats, Food Trucks presents portable and affordable detour-worthy dishes and puts to rest the notion that memorable meals can only be experienced in lofty towers of haute cuisine.
The secrets behind the vibrant flavors found in Vietnamese banh mi sandwiches, Hungarian paprikash, lacy French crepes, and global mash-ups like Mex-Korean kimchi quesadillas are delivered via more than 45 recipes, contributed by the truck chefs themselves. Behind-the-scenes profiles paint a deeper portrait of the talent behind the trend, offering insight into just what spawned the current mobile-food concept and just what kind of cook chooses the taco-truck life over the traditional brick-and-mortar restauranteur route. Vivid photography delivers tantalizing vignettes of street food life, as it ebbs and flows with the changing demographics from city to city.
Organized geographically, Food Trucks doubles as a road trip must-have, a travel companion for discovering memorable meals on minimal budgets and a snapshot of a culinary craze just waiting to be devoured.
Food Trucks
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“A fun romp — a guide to 'the kitchens on wheels' that serve up meals on urban street corners.”
—Final Word, USA Today, 5/24/11
“In this excellent cookbook on roving foods, Shouse, the food and drink editor for Time Out Chicago, interviews 50 proprietors of various taco carts, ice cream trucks, crepe trailers, and kebob-mobiles across 18 major U.S. cities (cooking in a truck is still illegal in the Windy City). Along the way, she creates a fascinating landscape of cultural diversity--folks from all walks of life who have dedicated themselves to cranking out quick, cheap, nomadic snacks. In New York, there is the classically trained bassoonist who has become a local hero with his Big Gay Ice Cream Truck. In Seattle, a woman who is part Korean and part Hawaiian teams with a Chinese-Filipino to serve up Spam sliders. And in New Orleans, a Katrina victim who attended culinary schools in London and Sydney makes brisket in a refrigerator that has been turned into a giant smoker. Along the way, Shouse provides recipes for crowd favorites like the buttermilk fried chicken found in Oahu, and a Sloppy Jose in Miami. Some ingredients, it turns out, travel more intriguingly than others. Bacon, for instance, shows up as a mac & cheese garnish in New Hampshire, arrives as a doughnut topping in Austin, Tex., and beds down in an ice cream sandwich in Manhattan. (Apr.)”
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review, 3/21/11
—Final Word, USA Today, 5/24/11
“In this excellent cookbook on roving foods, Shouse, the food and drink editor for Time Out Chicago, interviews 50 proprietors of various taco carts, ice cream trucks, crepe trailers, and kebob-mobiles across 18 major U.S. cities (cooking in a truck is still illegal in the Windy City). Along the way, she creates a fascinating landscape of cultural diversity--folks from all walks of life who have dedicated themselves to cranking out quick, cheap, nomadic snacks. In New York, there is the classically trained bassoonist who has become a local hero with his Big Gay Ice Cream Truck. In Seattle, a woman who is part Korean and part Hawaiian teams with a Chinese-Filipino to serve up Spam sliders. And in New Orleans, a Katrina victim who attended culinary schools in London and Sydney makes brisket in a refrigerator that has been turned into a giant smoker. Along the way, Shouse provides recipes for crowd favorites like the buttermilk fried chicken found in Oahu, and a Sloppy Jose in Miami. Some ingredients, it turns out, travel more intriguingly than others. Bacon, for instance, shows up as a mac & cheese garnish in New Hampshire, arrives as a doughnut topping in Austin, Tex., and beds down in an ice cream sandwich in Manhattan. (Apr.)”
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review, 3/21/11
About the Author
HEATHER SHOUSE is the senior food and drink correspondent for Time Out Chicago, as well as the Chicago reporter for Food & Wine magazine. Shouse has contributed numerous articles to CHOW, Rachael Ray, Men’s Journal, Playboy.com, and Draft magazine. She has edited and coauthored multiple editions of Time Out Chicago Eating & Drinking Guide and contributed to the Native's Guide to Chicago. While her position as a local authority on Chicago’s drinking and dining scene has offered numerous opportunities to direct appetites toward notable spots in every corner of the Windy City, this is her first book to truly combine her passion for travel and eating, the two things that make life worth living. Learn more www.heatherjshouse.com.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Food Trucks gives an education, a few recipes and a few specific trucks to look for in various cities.
The cities were chosen as locales with high numbers of street food vendors.
The book is divided into west coast pacific, pacific northwest, midwest, south and east coast. The number of food trucks covered range from 13 in Los Angeles to one in cities such as Milwaukee, Madison and Minneapolis, Marfa, Texas, New Orleans, Durham and Portsmouth. Strange to have cities chosen as street food regions to only have one food truck selected. Other cities covered are; Washington, New York, Philadelphia, Miami, Austin, Kansas City, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, Oregon, San Francisco and Oahu.
There is information on the individual trucks and how they started. Side bars tell where interesting side dishes can be obtained - these have the addresses, the food trucks also have their web sites and how to twitter them.
This really is not complete enough to be called a guidebook considering the amount of food trucks out there now and it really isn't a cookbook. It has about 45 recipes from various food trucks.
It's an interesting look at what has really been a long time method to sell food in metropolitan areas.
The cities were chosen as locales with high numbers of street food vendors.
The book is divided into west coast pacific, pacific northwest, midwest, south and east coast. The number of food trucks covered range from 13 in Los Angeles to one in cities such as Milwaukee, Madison and Minneapolis, Marfa, Texas, New Orleans, Durham and Portsmouth. Strange to have cities chosen as street food regions to only have one food truck selected. Other cities covered are; Washington, New York, Philadelphia, Miami, Austin, Kansas City, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, Oregon, San Francisco and Oahu.
There is information on the individual trucks and how they started. Side bars tell where interesting side dishes can be obtained - these have the addresses, the food trucks also have their web sites and how to twitter them.
This really is not complete enough to be called a guidebook considering the amount of food trucks out there now and it really isn't a cookbook. It has about 45 recipes from various food trucks.
It's an interesting look at what has really been a long time method to sell food in metropolitan areas.
11 of 15 people found the following review helpful
By VTPaws
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I loved the idea of this book. If there were more recipes, this rating would be different. Some of the most interesting food out there can be purchased off trucks, and oh what a following! This book describes specific operators by city. It would be more timely, if it were a blog. If there were more recipes, it would have more value. I have no doubt that some of these trucks are already gone, and new interesting ones are cruising their old neighborhoods. Find a food truck blog instead. The few recipes included in this book aren't worth it. I feel pso strongly that this compelled me to write my first review. Apologies to the author, but blogging might be the better medium for this topic.
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful
By Jamie Deleon
Format:Paperback
Mediocre. Recipes that have already been shared if you scour different food blogs. The layout is too piecey and all over the place. If you're into recipes, do not get this book, or buy it used. Not worth $20 dollars.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars
Could have been better...
I liked the overview of the food truck phenomenon, but I agree with other reviewers that the book could have published more recipes or perhaps gone a little further to find the... Read more
Published 29 days ago by Meliossa
2.0 out of 5 stars
Eh, okay. And biased
The book has a nice design and a great concept but didn't really deliver on it. It breaks the coverage up by area of the country and city, but the author clearly didn't look at... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Natalie
5.0 out of 5 stars
I love it!
I love it! real recipes, nice stories and cool picts. This is not a huge book but has a lot of information and a great layout.
Published 6 months ago by Rafael Alvarez
3.0 out of 5 stars
Already Outdated
I think the trouble with this topic is the somewhat temporary nature of food trucks.
Here in Kansas City we have a HUGE food truck culture. Read more
Here in Kansas City we have a HUGE food truck culture. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Slicey, webmaster
3.0 out of 5 stars
A good introduction to food trucks but this book lacks passion
I have had an interest in the current trend of gourmet food trucks for about 6 years or so. I have dined at many trucks and trailers in San Antonio, Austin, Minneapolis, Seattle,... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Timothy B. Riley
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Book
Read this and then hit the streets with a major appetite.
I recommend using this as an adventure guide, pick the trucks you like from the book, use... Read more
I recommend using this as an adventure guide, pick the trucks you like from the book, use... Read more
Published 16 months ago by samuel
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good book to learn about food trucks.
This book has a lot of good varieties of food trucks mentioned in it. However the book has more mentions about the biography of the people in the food truck and what is in them. Read more
Published 18 months ago by Robertjgahwilerjr
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