Friday, December 07, 2012

Eat on the street: Guerrilla Eats

I'm sorry, but anyone who thinks the street food situation in Manchester is just fine needs to have their palate examined. When it comes to street food we most certainly do not have game. If Manchester is going to be a (whisper it) 'world-class city', as we seem to be constantly striving to become these days, then we gotta do better than the Friday Piccadilly farmers' markets, nice though they are, annual one-offs like the MFDF or Manchester Picnic markets and the yuletide currywurst invasion currently on display at a public square near you. And you know, I like the potato kiosk too, but it's hard to get that excited about a jacket potato*.

Let's be clear about this: When I say street food I'm not namechecking some mindless foodie trend. I  mean food that you  buy from a cart or a kiosk on the street, not necessarily as part of a council-sanctioned street food market, but individual traders just there, or there, on the street. (See the ace Northern StrEATS for illustration.) Other cities have a thriving pavement ecosystem that encompasses everything from shi-shi gourmet food trucks to tiny stainless steel push carts selling dosas, dumplings or tacos, from the highfalutin' to the humble; the good, the bad and the tasty. Why the hell don't we? We've certainly got the footfall to support it. It's a mystery to me, though I've heard grumblings for years about high trader fees and beauracratic insanity detering all but the most determined food vendors. And I can understand that space is at a premium here and the weather isn't amazing year round, but it seems to me that with all we have going on culturally Manchester should be better at this.

Why does it matter? If we had better street food we might have better restaurants. It all goes back to this idea of the ecosystem: Without the little guy plankton of a healthy street cart population the whole culinary environment struggles. Street vending provides an ideal first crack at running your own catering business. A popular street cart often spawns a great restaurant, maybe after expanding to two or three mobile units and doing a pop-up restaurant or two, contributing positively to the city's food scene along the way. And street carts provide a great low-cost, low-risk way to try new cuisines. People who might balk at having dinner at a Colombian restaurant will often be quite happy to buy an empanada for a couple of pounds if it's in front of them and smells good. Eventually what you get is a dining public that can support a more interesting variety of restaurants than the standard parade of identikit Mod Brit places, chippies and kebab shops. Everybody with tastebuds wins.

So I'm watching Guerrilla Eats with great interest. This new collective of seven of the city's most interesting independent street food vendors is running their first event, a group gathering at a car park on Port Street in the Northern Quarter, this weekend. They'll be serving up barbecue, burgers and dogs, paella, chaat and cakes and ice cream. I've sampled some of their wares (I still dream about the peanut butter and salted caramel ice cream on warm brioche I scoffed at Rammyfest two years ago courtesy of Ginger's Comfort Emporium) and heard great things about lots of the others. Go forth and eat yourselves silly. Remember: you're noshing for a good cause.

*Though I have heard things about a mythical foodstuff known as a Christmas potato that you might be able to get at the All Saints potato kiosk about now. I believe stuffing may be involved.

Image of Ginger's Comfort Emporium from Pretty Nostalgic, who have done a great piece about the country's best street food providers here.


9 comments:

Sam said...

I've just been to Boston recently and was absolutely blown away by the amazingness that is food trucks. The trucks just set up at dedicated stops (e.g. outside the public library) and happily sell tasty food to the crowds of people gathering around them. There's tacos, grilled cheese sandwiches, Chinese vendors, vegetarian trucks... and they're all just really. really. good. Not like "ugh I suppose I'll have to get a jacket potato from that truck then" but "YAY Roxy's super awesome deluxe grilled cheese truck is here again OMG LUNCH IS SORTED".

It may be the weather in Manchester that just won't allow any outdoor business to thrive, but it would definitely be a fantastic addition to areas where the only stationary options are unappealing.

Kate Feld said...

Yep, that's exactly what I'm talking about. A lot of American cities have that going down, with the vendors using twitter to tell folks where they're going to set up shop that day.

I don't think we can totally blame the weather. (The weather in Boston isn't that great, by the way. Trust me: I'm from New England.) And lots of Euopean cities to the north of us have thriving street food scenes year round. One day maybe us too...

Voices From The Below said...

Manalive I could talk about this for ages.
The issue is as much economic/policy-based as it is meteorological - national and then local government is encouraging retail in every way but this - have you noticed there are a lot of markets, a lot of festivals and more and more pop-up events? That's because this government, for all their faults (and despite the dubious reasoning and dumbing-down headline grabbing nature of the way in which they've presented it) do actually seem to be putting their money where their mouth is (to an extent) in encouraging those things and we are noticing the change - but there is no provision made in their grand plan to save the high street to encourage street vendors.
Why? Because despite the fact that they make all of the events above better attended (and just *better*) the government don't want them to be able to operate regularly enough to make a living out of it because then they'd be taking money away from the food/drink traders who don't have a perfectly self contained kitchen set up (aka a truck or cart) and are WAY more likely to move into bricks and mortar retail and, in doing so, contribute far more tax mon-ay to our beleaguered retail economy.
Standalone food carts etc are highly regulated and licensed and it’s a difficult, bureaucratic path to become a street trader not affiliated to a market, especially if you’re just starting out – I’m sure government could make it way easier if they wanted to and we could all have tacos for breakfast but the fact is that they just don’t.

Kate Feld said...

You make some excellent points, VFTB, and. Regulating food vendors is something that mainly falls to local councils, right? I just don't know enough about the specifics here; Is there one or two things we could try to get MCC to do or not do to encourage more of a street food scene? I suspect this is something the folks at CityCo have thought about a bit, maybe they could help? Or is it beyond hope?

Tacos for breakfast. Mmmmmmmmm (drifts off into a reverie)... What?

The Lone Gourmet said...

In M13, 2 miles south of the centre, there's a fantastic street food cart on the corner of Stockport Road and Slade Lane. It's called Grillaz, it popped up about 5 months ago and it doers the most amazing steak and chips for £6. It's halal and they'll spice the meat for you if like. It's all cooked to order and they even deliver although it's more fun having it cooked in front of you! They do burgers and grilled chicken too and it's nothing like you'll find in the myriad of Pakistani grill houses or fried chicken shops that dominate the area. It makes me wonder what else is popping up out in the burbs that relies purely on word of mouth among the locals...

nerissact said...

The various Caribbean vans are good in Manchester but none in the city centre. Kool Running which parks near the Sharon church in Hulme is particularly good. I quite like the tiny one near the Apollo too.

But yes, we deserve better both in choice & quality.

Kate Feld said...

Great tips, guys.

Voices From The Below said...

Hi Kate, this is Helen Power - for some unknown reason blog comments of mine always get posted as Voices From the Below - even on Love Levenshulme!

I'm not sure there is all that much that can be done to encourage the council to do anything which isn't either an easy win for them or on the agenda they've been set but policy but this is coming of a week of frustrating interactions with them on several projects to it might be my cynicism getting the better of me! It might be worth chatting to the Food and Drink Festival people to see who provides their funding from the council because you would hope whoever sees the value of that for the city would also see the value in encouraging decent street food...I'm off to Brooklyn in a few months and I will make sure I do PLENTY of research into their best street food :)

Kate Feld said...

Ooh, off to Brooklyn... jealous. Make sure you look on the NYC boards at Chowhound to find the latest street food hotspots, it's been a huge help to me in the past.