Are Mobile Food trucks Steampunk?

[Hurricane Annie]

  I suspect the chief ingredient in all NZ sausages  is saw dust.

But when you consider what the alternatives could be, ('haven't seen any strays round here for ages …..') perhaps that isn't so bad .

What does classic kiwi kai consists of?  I see a couple of the pics feature seafood, does it include meat dishes too?

Cora. New Zealand traditional food  [Kiwi Kai) incorporates  the traditional  food eaten by the original inhabitants Maori  and the  colonial setters predominantly  Scots, English, Irish, alongside  more modern adaptions.  

 It encompasses fish n chips, meat pies, sausage rolls slathered in tomato sauce,  roast lamb, kumara, pavlova,  ice cream,  fruit salad, whipped cream.  Onto more exotic sounding   kai moana (sea food)  kina sea urchin, fish dishes, shellfish, mutton bird, accompanied  by fern shoots, puha plant  and various  " weeds", tree leaves and berries.   Most native birds are  endangered and or protected from hunting.  We have no native mammals.  Maori and settlers brought pigs.  Sheep and cattle followed

 Hangi, meat and vege cooked in the ground with hot rocks,  is a popular  special occasion or group gathering   cooking method as is the spit roast..

 Maori  remedies, flavourings and accompaniments  are  receiving greater popularity.  Horipito, kawakawa, pikopiko, manuka

https://media.newzealand.com/en/story-ideas/kai-indigenous-maori-food-ingredients/


[url=https://www.newzealand.com/int/feature/indigenous-maori-food-ingredients/]https://www.newzealand.com/int/feature/indigenous-maori-food-ingredients/[/url]

 

[J. Wilhelm]

While I don't agree that the modern food carts we see in the street are Steampunk, I believe they could be Dieselpunk or more appropriately Atompunk, due to the fact that is when the world saw them first.

Having said that, the idea itself of a mobile food cart is much much older, probably dating back centuries into the mediaeval period if not much older. Simply because street food vendors have always existed.

As far as the Steampunk period is concerned, there was one notable case of a food cart that comes very close to the 20th century type :the Chuck Wagon :

 Are you suggesting street vending is the oldest profession?  {it probably is}

 In NZ the leading frozen vege  company [ not that is has much competition] puts out  a corn, ampsicum, pea, celery and onion combo called "chuck wagon corn".  It's a handy go to  ingredient  for  so many meals.

You know what? Apparently "Chuck Wagon Corn" is a thing in the US. There's a recipe (from a Georgia (state) pharmaceutical company  ), and at least one frozen veg product (Washington State) with that name. Honestly, I've never heard from it. To me it looks like your regular "Del Monte Brand canned vegetable medley"

[J. Wilhelm]

  I suspect the chief ingredient in all NZ sausages  is saw dust.

But when you consider what the alternatives could be, ('haven't seen any strays round here for ages …..') perhaps that isn't so bad .

What does classic kiwi kai consists of?  I see a couple of the pics feature seafood, does it include meat dishes too?

There's a joke in Mexico City , that when looking for a street taco stand, you need to pay attention and see if there are any stray dogs in the area. Generally you want to pick the stand with the most dogs around. The opposite is an ominous sign.

[Hurricane Annie]

While I don't agree that the modern food carts we see in the street are Steampunk, I believe they could be Dieselpunk or more appropriately Atompunk, due to the fact that is when the world saw them first.

Having said that, the idea itself of a mobile food cart is much much older, probably dating back centuries into the mediaeval period if not much older. Simply because street food vendors have always existed.

As far as the Steampunk period is concerned, there was one notable case of a food cart that comes very close to the 20th century type :the Chuck Wagon :

 Are you suggesting street vending is the oldest profession?  {it probably is}

 In NZ the leading frozen vege  company [ not that is has much competition] puts out  a corn, ampsicum, pea, celery and onion combo called "chuck wagon corn".  It's a handy go to  ingredient  for  so many meals.

You know what? Apparently "Chuck Wagon Corn" is a thing in the US. There's a recipe (from a Georgia (state) pharmaceutical company  ), and at least one frozen veg product (Washington State) with that name. Honestly, I've never heard from it. To me it looks like your regular "Del Monte Brand canned vegetable medley"

 I wouldn't trust food from a pharmaceutical  company  - though it has given me. An inspiration for a mobile food vending  concept....

 [Not selling pharmaceutical)]

[Cora Courcelle]

  I suspect the chief ingredient in all NZ sausages  is saw dust.

But when you consider what the alternatives could be, ('haven't seen any strays round here for ages …..') perhaps that isn't so bad .

What does classic kiwi kai consists of?  I see a couple of the pics feature seafood, does it include meat dishes too?

Cora. New Zealand traditional food  [Kiwi Kai) incorporates  the traditional  food eaten by the original inhabitants Maori  and the  colonial setters predominantly  Scots, English, Irish, alongside  more modern adaptions.  

 It encompasses fish n chips, meat pies, sausage rolls slathered in tomato sauce,  roast lamb, kumara, pavlova,  ice cream,  fruit salad, whipped cream.  Onto more exotic sounding   kai moana (sea food)  kina sea urchin, fish dishes, shellfish, mutton bird, accompanied  by fern shoots, puha plant  and various  " weeds", tree leaves and berries.   Most native birds are  endangered and or protected from hunting.  We have no native mammals.  Maori and settlers brought pigs.  Sheep and cattle followed

 Hangi, meat and vege cooked in the ground with hot rocks,  is a popular  special occasion or group gathering   cooking method as is the spit roast..

 Maori  remedies, flavourings and accompaniments  are  receiving greater popularity.  Horipito, kawakawa, pikopiko, manuka

https://media.newzealand.com/en/story-ideas/kai-indigenous-maori-food-ingredients/


[url=https://www.newzealand.com/int/feature/indigenous-maori-food-ingredients/]https://www.newzealand.com/int/feature/indigenous-maori-food-ingredients/[/url]

 

What a lovely eclectic mix.

[Hurricane Annie]

 The height of steampunk  mobile vending

https://youtu.be/irJ6QCM7DnE

[Hurricane Annie]

Last October we made a little dress up event, but we got a common catering by poptop (though it was very tasty). I can't upload the photos right now, I need access to my computer. I think it's the best option when you got costumes and still want to hang out. I'd try something like this again this summer.

 Please do share  the images of your event. What style of catering  do poptop do?

[groomporter]

Street vendors of "fast food" were certainly a thing even if not as big/mobile as a modern food truck.

The Victorians were “fast food” consumers, but what they ate came largely from individual purveyors on the streets of London and the other large cities.

http://vichist.blogspot.com/2010/04/fast-food-generation.html

[Hurricane Annie]

Street vendors of "fast food" were certainly a thing even if not as big/mobile as a modern food truck.

The Victorians were “fast food” consumers, but what they ate came largely from individual purveyors on the streets of London and the other large cities.

http://vichist.blogspot.com/2010/04/fast-food-generation.html

Thank you Groomporter. That was an interesting litre read. One could almost imagine being there in the hustle and bustle. For a hungry pauper  living in doss houses, it would have been a sustaining meal 

[Caledonian]

i can see some foodtruck like concept working well in a steampunk setting. in and of themselves, I don't think they are.

[Hurricane Annie]

i can see some foodtruck like concept working well in a steampunk setting. in and of themselves, I don't think they are.

 Which is a very valid  and considered answer.  The concept lends itself well to steam or dieselpunk  theme and some trucks may be diesel operated, it may not   be considered a " thing". It opens up the imagination though

[J. Wilhelm]

I think in some ways it's fairly obvious in the American Weird West. Just a Ford Model T lorry with side windows, a bar, and red and white striped cloth awnings. Perhaps some sort of ingenious overboard oven or coal fired BBQ / smoker-grill in the back made from steel barrels which are a very real thing around these parts. You see those smokers everywhere in the Southern US. There's no reason it won't fit in a Steampunk setting, which also makes it very anticlimactic.

[Hurricane Annie]

 Like a post apocalyptic military chuck wagon.

 Ex Belgian ambulance 1955 model converted





 I'm assuming they are offering coffee ; }




Someones' grandmother's getting nylons  and chocolate bars from the back of a truck.


Solar punk

[chironex]

I shouldn't vote, because food trucks are all so different, they are all those things at once, especially during events like Townsville Eats (a large street party in the connection of Flinders Street East and West), a recent celebration of food trucks last year, a market, car show, barbecue competition (stop laughing, it really happened!) or heritage day, you see some dieselpunk food trucks, not many that really evoke an era of steam and clockwork power but definitely some entertaining ones, great little ones which appear cheap and half-arsed but have great global menus and original recipes, some playing up how small and independent they are for manufactured authenticity, and some utter crap. And yes, there is a reverse trike around here (Bootleg Coffee).

You may as well ask whether cafes or restaurants are steampunk.

[von Corax]

...barbecue competition (stop laughing, it really happened!)...

Why would I laugh? Competitive barbecue is serious business on this continent!

[J. Wilhelm]

...barbecue competition (stop laughing, it really happened!)...

Why would I laugh? Competitive barbecue is serious business on this continent!

Indeed it is. Here's something worth sharing: American Chuck Wagon Association's annual chuck wagon cook-off.

http://www.americanchuckwagon.org/chuck-wagon-events.html

Chuck wagon cook-offs are apparently very popular and are part reenactment and part county faire. Some are sponsored by big names in the food industry and Western apparel outfits.

Chandler Chuck Wagon Cook Off 2018

Chuck Wagon Cooking in Texas: Video 2: See how it all turns out!

2017 National Chuck Wagon Cook-off: National Cowboy Symposium & Celebration

I'm not sure we can call the Chuck Wagon "the First Food Truck," but at least for the young US it was. The industry that drove the development of the chuck wagon was the cattle industry. Before days of refrigeration cattle raised in Texas and Oklahoma would be driven north by the original "Buckaroos" (the anglicized version of the Mexican word "Vaqueros") or cowboys as we know them today (many of whom were either African Americans or Mexicans, BTW), and they needed a way to prepare food along the trail they rode.

Some foods were developed about the same time of the emergence of the Chuck Wagon, and thus are associated with the history of the 19th century expansion of the United States, most notably "Chili con Carne" or "Chili" for short (Chili spelled with an "I" as opposed to an "e" as in Chile, which is the name for all hot peppers). These hot pepper based recipes were developed for the preservation of meat in Mexican Texas before Texas became independent and later annexed to the US. Chili con Carne became tied to American culture by way of the chuck wagon when it spread with the cattle drives to other parts of the US.

Chili con Carne basically is a type of meat stew with a hot pepper (Chile pepper based) and tomato curry-like sauce that can be dehydrated into bricks, so it became a popular food to carry on a chuck wagon for obvious reasons. The exact origin of Texas-style Chili recipes is unknown, but we know it does not come from Central Mexico, at least not directly, making this an American dish that was unknown throughout Mexico until the late 20th century when US marketing could bring it as an American novelty food. Chili is Mexican only because Texas was part Mexico at the time it was developed.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chili_con_carne

[Hurricane Annie]

...barbecue competition (stop laughing, it really happened!)...

Why would I laugh? Competitive barbecue is serious business on this continent!

Indeed it is. Here's something worth sharing: American Chuck Wagon Association's annual chuck wagon cook-off.

http://www.americanchuckwagon.org/chuck-wagon-events.html

Chuck wagon cook-offs are apparently very popular and are part reenactment and part county faire. Some are sponsored by big names in the food industry and Western apparel outfits.

Chandler Chuck Wagon Cook Off 2018

Chuck Wagon Cooking in Texas: Video 2: See how it all turns out!

2017 National Chuck Wagon Cook-off: National Cowboy Symposium & Celebration


I'm not sure we can call the Chuck Wagon "the First Food Truck," but at least for the young US it was. The industry that drove the development of the chuck wagon was the cattle industry. Before days of refrigeration cattle raised in Texas and Oklahoma would be driven north by the original "Buckaroos" (the anglicized version of the Mexican word "Vaqueros") or cowboys as we know them today (many of whom were either African Americans or Mexicans, BTW), and they needed a way to prepare food along the trail they rode.

Some foods were developed about the same time of the emergence of the Chuck Wagon, and thus are associated with the history of the 19th century expansion of the United States, most notably "Chili con Carne" or "Chili" for short (Chili spelled with an "I" as opposed to an "e" as in Chile, which is the name for all hot peppers). These hot pepper based recipes were developed for the preservation of meat in Mexican Texas before Texas became independent and later annexed to the US. Chili con Carne became tied to American culture by way of the chuck wagon when it spread with the cattle drives to other parts of the US.

Chili con Carne basically is a type of meat stew with a hot pepper (Chile pepper based) and tomato curry-like sauce that can be dehydrated into bricks, so it became a popular food to carry on a chuck wagon for obvious reasons. The exact origin of Texas-style Chili recipes is unknown, but we know it does not come from Central Mexico, at least not directly, making this an American dish that was unknown throughout Mexico until the late 20th century when US marketing could bring it as an American novelty food. Chili is Mexican only because Texas was part Mexico at the time it was developed.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chili_con_carne

 BBQ tongs at dawn!!

[J. Wilhelm]

BBQ tongs at dawn!!

Apparently there's such a thing as a World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest...

https://www.memphisinmay.org/events/world-championship-barbecue-cooking-contest

But I am partial to the chuck wagon type contests. There's something a bit more honest about the contest with the various difficulties that the reenactment brings to the event. Now if you really want to make it more interesting, combine it with a traditional blacksmithing contest, and establish as a rule they have to forge their own cooking implements 

[Hurricane Annie]

BBQ tongs at dawn!!

Apparently there's such a thing as a World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest...

https://www.memphisinmay.org/events/world-championship-barbecue-cooking-contest

But I am partial to the chuck wagon type contests. There's something a bit more honest about the contest with the various difficulties that the reenactment brings to the event. Now if you really want to make it more interesting, combine it with a traditional blacksmithing contest, and establish as a rule they have to forge their own cooking implements 

 There could be room  for hand hewn  cooking impliments.  All manner of  "needs must"  tools, fuel and vessels would have been used. Hunger on the road would have over come any fussy food requirements

[Mercury Wells]

Brick by Brick: Rebuilding Our Past - Fish & Chip Shop | History Documentary | Reel Truth. History

They repair an Edwardian wooden Fish & chips cart.

[Hurricane Annie]

Brick by Brick: Rebuilding Our Past - Fish & Chip Shop | History Documentary | Reel Truth. History

They repair an Edwardian wooden Fish & chips cart.

 No food and hygiene regs interfering on business back then

[J. Wilhelm]

Brick by Brick: Rebuilding Our Past - Fish & Chip Shop | History Documentary | Reel Truth. History

They repair an Edwardian wooden Fish & chips cart.

 No food and hygiene regs interfering on business back then

If it's fried, it's all good 

[Mercury Wells]

New life brewed for 100-year-old East End coffee stall.

An east London coffee stall which has been run by the same family for a century is to be given a new lease of life once it shuts for the final time.

Syd's coffee stall was opened by a World War One veteran who started it using his invalidity pension.

It has been run by three generations of the Tothill family since then but will close on Friday after current owner Jane decided it was "time to move on".

The stand has been acquired to go on display at the Museum of London.

Sydney Edward Tothill spent £117 commissioning a local coachbuilder to construct the stall which has sat on Calvert Avenue in Shoreditch since March 1919.

(C) BBC '19

[Hurricane Annie]

 Did a bit of a tiki tour across the countryside prior to the Christmas festivities.  Am sad to report that the mobile  vendors were few and far between. They were nondescript and limited to coffee, cordial and fairly standard pre packaged snacks. It took a 3rd glance  to notice they were food carts. They looked like tool box trailers.

Liven up yourselves up and live a bit !