I have a beef about how street food vendors are treated on this continent. This entry is a long one, but by the end, I think you’ll understand.
Yesterday the CBC reported that street vendors in the Ontario province can now expand beyond what’s usually found at the food carts. From the article:
Health Minister George Smitherman said his government has updated food regulations to allow the sale of salads, fruit, hamburgers, pizza, samosas, non-dairy smoothies, burritos, corn on the cob and baked goods, starting Aug. 1 … “We are also helping a new group of entrepreneurs showcase their culture’s culinary contributions to their cities,” he said … “Ontarians are at our best when we embrace the diversity of our people and our culture,” Smitherman said.
Let’s go to the actual announcement from the Ontario government’s web site:
- Pre-prepared, pre-packaged foods such as salads, fruits and baked goods;
- Pre-cooked foods that are reheated on site such as samosas, pizzas, burritos, hamburgers and hot dogs;
- Lower-risk foods such as orange juice, corn on the cob, whole fruit and non-dairy smoothies;
“These new options will help street food vendors be more creative in their menu offerings,” said Susur Lee, internationally renowned chef and author. “It will put Ontario on the culinary map by showcasing our province’s great talent and diversity.”
There’s no way I can appreciate this whatsoever. You may think this only has to do with my lamenting not being able to sell handmade corndogs at the Luna Pier yard sales last week. But really, this goes far beyond that one complaint.
What’s written on the CBC’s web site says the “… updated food regulations … allow the sale of …” (emphasis mine). There’s no actual preparation on-site. They’re allowing the sale of pre-cooked, pre-packaged and re-heated foods.
This doesn’t work for me.
Back in 1986 or ’87, I was driving a sandwich truck, delivering pre-packaged sandwiches to convenience stores and gas stations. One day, while getting a tray ready to take into a now-defunct Action Auto store in downtown Lansing within sight of the State Capitol building, I heard a little voice ask, “Sir, tamales?” In the rear door of my truck stood a Hispanic boy, maybe 8 or 10 years old, with a styrofoam cooler. Curious, I looked into the cooler. What I saw were piping-hot, handmade tamales, probably made by the boy’s mama or grandmama at home, maybe even in an alley somewhere. As he didn’t speak English, and I’d forgotten every Spanish word I’ve ever learned (ok, so I can count to 20 and say “Yes” and “No”), I had no clue how much money he was asking for those treats. He held out 6 tamales. When I handed him a five-spot and his eyes got seriously wide, I knew people had been stiffing him.
I’ve not eaten better tamales before or since.
It is estimated there are approximately 130,000 street food vendors in Calcutta, India, alone, accounting for $100 million in annual sales. In Bangkok, Thailand, there may be another 120,000 vendors. The Food & Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is attempting to educate these vendors on food safety, hygiene and related issues. The information coming from studies is interesting:
School canteens in Chonburi, Thailand and Iloilo, Philippines, use local street food vendors to supply the daily light meal. In Ile-ife, Nigeria, 96 percent of elementary school children typically buy their breakfast from street vendors … Perhaps the biggest surprise is how nutritious street foods can be. A study in Calcutta revealed that an average (500 gram) meal containing 20-30 g of protein, 12-15 g of fat, 174-183g of carbohydrates and providing approximately 1,000 calories could be purchased for only US$0.25 on the street. In Bogor, Indonesia, a study showed that it was possible to obtain almost half the recommended daily allowance of protein, iron and vitamins A and C from a meal also costing about US$0.25 … In fact, street foods may be the least expensive and best method of obtaining a nutritionally balanced meal outside the home, provided that the consumer is informed and able to choose the proper combination of food.
The UN article does continue on with worries about food safety, vendor hygiene and related issues with street food vendors in developing countries. It’s a serious issue, that’s for sure.
But what’s striking is what people take away when they have these meals. In The Nasty Bits, Chef Anthony Bourdain writes about eating in Vietnam:
An old man grills morsels of pork and pork meatballs over a small, homemade charcoal grill (the cha) on the sidewalk, turning the meat with bamboo splints, small plumes of smoke issuing from the glowing coals as juice from the meat strikes them. Just inside an open-to-the-street storefront, his wife ladles out bowls of a room-temperature mixture of vinegar, nuoc mam, green papaya juice, sugar, pepper, garlic and chili, with sliced cucumber at the bottom. The still-sizzling meat hits the table with a bowl of the “soup”, accompanied by a plate of lettuces, sweet basil, mint, cilantro, and raw vegetables; side plates of sliced red chilies, salt, pepper and lime; and a big plate of cold rice noodles. First, you drop some pork into the soup, the meat issuing a thin slick of juice into the liquid; then, grabbing a bit of green and herb and a healthy ball of cold noodles, you dunk and slurp … The place is dark and grim, the floor streaked with charcoal and littered with the detritus of Vietnamese post-lunch-rush papers, cigarette butts, empty beer bottles. (Vietnamese litter with abandon, but then clean up scrupulously afterward.) The cooking equipment is rudimentary, the chopsticks look decades old, but the bun cha is an amazement: sweet, sour, meaty, crunchy, forceful yet clean-tasting and fresh, with just the right amount of caramelization and flavor from the low-temperature grilling, The cold rice noodles separate perfectly when dipped in the liquid, as they should in any good bun cha, I’m told. The proprietor puts down two more plates, fried spring rolls and puffy fried shrimp cakes, also good to dip when the pork runs out … I begin to understand Linh’s passion for the place and why, on his lunch hour, he travels across town to eat here.
The fact is, on this North American continent, we don’t have a clue what real, honest street food is like. People who have been to countries where real street food exists rave about it. Since I posted the entry last week about not being able to sell corndogs in Luna Pier, people at work have come to talk to me about their experiences with real street food vendors outside the U.S. and Canada, how excellent that food is, and how nothing here will ever compare.
Take a look at Michigan’s State Food Establishment License Type Guide. There’s no accomodation for real street food vendors. Sure, there’s the “Special Transitory Food Unit” for hot dog carts and the like. But here’s where the understanding comes in …
If you’re reading this blog, you might know a thing or three about cooking. Like me, you may even cook the majority of the meals for your family and enjoy it as a form of therapy, using cooking to ease the absurdities of the rest of the day. Over the past week or so, the 4th of July holiday, you may have cooked for other people as well, possibly even grilling once or thrice, feeding a throng of family members or friends with some of your finest meals yet.
Did any of your diners become ill? Probably not. They probably came back for seconds or thirds. Yeah, I know, Uncle Ralph had fourths … If anyone did become ill, you probably got some of that e.Coli-laced ground beef from a Safeway store in Canada …
Did you catch that? If anyone did become ill, the likelyhood is that the problem wasn’t your cooking skills.
Ok, now, grab that little charcoal grill of yours and set it up in front of any Health Department in Michigan. Make sure you have the best and freshest ground beef possible, make burgers, and grill them till they’re well done.
Wait, let me take that back … try to grill them till they’re well done. The fact is, that health department probably won’t let you last that long.
And it will have had nothing to do with your skills as a cook.
It will only be because you didn’t follow their procedures for licensing.
If you’re a ScoutMaster and you’ve been to Camp Tapico in Kalkaska this past week, you may have had grilled gingerbread cooked by my 14-year-old son Adam on this earth-bound grill:
Try building and using one of these pit grills within sight of a Health Inspector. Or, on the streetcorner during a City-Wide Yard Sale.
While there are definite sanitation and hygiene issues with street food vendors around the world, the fact is that such activities are seriously over-regulated on this continent. It’s over-regulated to the point where we have to go to a country with less or even no regulation of these activities to actually enjoy them properly.
Bun cha? No thanks, Chef Bourdain, I’d rather go to Toronto and buy a shrink-wrapped salad from a refrigerated cart where I can see all their nifty permits in their cute little frames.
Yeah, right.
Hey Adam, tell me again how to cook coffee in a hollowed-out log! Don’t worry, folks, I do have a picture of that log. I hear the Scoutmasters really enjoyed Adam’s Log Coffee.
Without a permit.