Food Trucks

Book excerpt: 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.