Elemental Fire

The campfire, the barbecue, the fireplace, the hearth, a tandoori oven, the wood burning stove, the gas light, all of which use the first gift from the gods, fire. The heaven rocked when the news got back that man knew fire. The chef, the pit master, the smokehouse, the luau, are all fire.

There is nothing more primal than fire. A gift and a curse, and a blessing and destroying all consuming elemental thing. Fire has a life of its own and the mastery of fire is a essential bit of what it is to be human. The link between food and nature, nutrition and humanity, simple yet powerful, basic and complex all at the same time.

Fire is transformitive, changing a raw meat into a new thing, charred and sweetened, concentrated rich and flavorful. The fire is the element that created cuisine out of simple items combining with the magic of flame and power. In this age of microwave options we are moving further and further away from nature. We are not spending time in the wilderness exploring, sleeping in tents, finding the unknown stream, hunting and gathering, or even studying about food. Americans spent more money in restaurants last year than in the grocery stores. What is amazing is that, for one thing, that has never happened before, and two it is putting even more distance between the diner and their food source.

As a chef instructor, I spend a good portion of my time familiarizing my students with information about nature and nutrition because they simply don't have any idea where the food comes from other than the grocery store. They are often amazed to learn where on a hog is the ham, that carrots are a root vegetable, that cheese is a fermented milk product, heck I am sure they couldn't tell me where the garbage dump is in their community.

I learned to cook, initially, in my grandmothers kitchen. I come from a long line of great female cooks in the family, both for the families needs and to serve others for a wage. A few of the men in the family could cook as well, but generally it was the mothers that did the majority of the chore. Unlike our white counterparts in America, the women in my family were working outside of the house well before the 1950's and 1960's so the revolution of the working woman was already our reality. Yet, the women in our lineage were cooking at home as well and maintaining the household chores. Food culture and recipe development has been co-opted by corporations.

World War II was the first time large numbers of women worked in factories to supply goods and munitions to our men overseas fighting. Once the men came home, a large number of women did not return to working just in home for the benefit of their families alone. My grandmother worked a full-time job at a discount department store less than 5 miles from our house. She would come home everyday for lunch and either start working on our dinner for the evening or check on what she had begun cooking that morning. She did all the grocery shopping and nearly all the house cleaning as well. She always had a backyard garden much like our neighbors and the family just to the West of our place would plan their garden with her so that we would plant some items and they planted other things so we could trade across the fence.

If you have ever planted vegetables you will find that in a good summer's growth, you will end up growing more than your family can consume so trading harvests was to the benefit of both our families. We probably were the only yard in our area that had corn and strawberries growing.

Weather or not you even roast something on a barbecue grill yourself, once the fire is lit, your nose instantly tells you that something special is happening. We first dine with our nose, then with our eyes and ears, then with our mouth, then lastly with our brain. Fire is the beginning of all of that. A grill, a stove, a smoker, a dehydrator, all started with fire.

Microwaving is something very different. Microwaves excite the molecules within the food starting at the middle of the item whereas fire begins to change the outer layers of the food then the heat is transformed toward the inner parts of the item, so in many ways microwaves are the exact opposite of the natural cooking experience of fire cooking. Microwaving food is creating yet another bit of distance between the food and the cook and dinner.

Food is life. Food gathering and hunting takes a life from an animal or plant that then gives life sustaining essence to those who eat it. It is the food chain, it is primal and essential. When you create barriers between yourself and your food, you leave yourself very vulnerable to a host of problems of health and spirit. Food is ritualistic. It has a rhythm, a constant, a variable, a language that is universally understood beyond any barrier of culture and geography. Welcoming guests into your home always has an offering of food from the host, this is a gift of life, a wish that you strive beyond the visit, an honoring the guest, and this is why it is often considered very rude to refuse the gift of food. The gift of food or drink has the element of careful preparation, expense, and culture transmission.

Fire can be essential to survival in the wilderness, it can warm you in times of cold weather, it can transform foods into cuisine, it's were we began to transmit history through storytelling, and it's where we gathered for safety. All of society began around a fire and continued to grow with cooking. Cooking is as human as language and protection of offspring. Without the skill of creating fires there would not be society, we would still be nomadic, we still be small groups of people, hunting and gathering. It is through fire and agriculture that society is formed. We are no longer a herd of humans but a society with universal truths, no matter the language spoken, mathematics and food need not be explained in order to be understood. Food can be simply about satisfying a need or it can be the catalysis for communion with others or elevated into art.

Food is medicine, food is art, food is humanity, food is society, and food is life giving need. I tell my students all the time that whenever you begin to rely upon a corporation to feed you, you are in trouble. The corporation is a faceless entity that haves laws that treat it like a type of person, but this pseudo 'person' only has one propose, to gain profit. Real people produce food for sustaining life, nourishing the body, transmitting emotions, warding off illness, creating links between generations, a ritual, a communion between people, a humility as all people need to eat, from kings to peasants, it levels all of us to the same place as we all eat.

Enjoy your meals instead of just consuming. Begin to gain understanding of what food really is to us humans and seek out how it can be transformed, into art, or into profit. When profit is the only purpose, when a corporation begins its life, the art isn't for the goodness of the corporation, it is solely for the benefit of humanity, therefore, I contend, that the corporations of food kill the art that is at the heart of the chef, turning them into scientists and machines of profit. Corporations have continuously made food changes to create more an more profit, more and more consumers, more and more addictive people hooked on their products, depended people upon purchasing their products, instead of creators of quality products. Industrialization of food has created many societal problems, illness, addiction. Like any created factory, once turned on, it wants to continue its work. A machine, when it stops, essentially dies once it is turned off, and death isn't preferred, by anyone or anything. Stop bowing to the gods of profit and seek the nutrients that will sustain and enrich your life.    

Movable Merriment

Each year Chicago undergoes two distinct seasons, Winter's bitter days, and Summer's sultry nights. Each of them have their pro's and con's, issues and errors, but for a great many of us natives we look forward to the fairs, carnivals, concerts in the park, parades, festivals. Any chance we get to enjoy the wonderful scenery and feel warm air on your skin, Chicago takes the horse by the reigns and runs with it. We burst at the seems with music, mayhem, mysteries, rides, fireworks, and of course everyone who attends wants something in their bellies while the fun is being had.

Most customers either want the familiar or to be introduced to something new and exciting. Fairs are great for offering up some new treat like the fried Oreos, or a alligator on a stick. Other's can be street fairs highlighting the cuisine of the neighborhood. Greek fest, the Taste of Chicago, Fiesta Del Sol, or anytime people are in a celebratory mood, Chicagoan's do it up in style and eating is always a part of such merriment. Sights, sounds, and circuses are soon to be had once again in my beloved city.

The Mayor's Office of Special Events has the large task of permitting, scheduling, and overseeing all of the events in this large place. The weather will brake for good soon and our residents and tourist will once again turn thoughts to being outside as much as possible, shed off the layers of winter clothes, and run bare feet into sand and grass.
http://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/dca/supp_info/festival_events_dates.html

Most don't give a second thought as to how all of these things work, take place, get permitted, ordered, and produced for their pleasure. The machinery involved just to get any type of food to these events is complicated and everyone involved must be extra careful in their efforts. Controlling food temperature in a remote location is not an easy tasks. Hot boxes and ice chests are needed if the location has limited electrical access but even if there is electrical you have to plan for refrigeration and lights, gas hook ups, and potable water.

Foodborne illnesses can multiply quickly, especially out doors on a hot Summer's Day. You also need to be careful of insects that can contaminate foods, then there is garbage removal, and hand washing. Lots of moving parts to make an event special. All food sales at these type of events are highly regulated and monitored. Food service handler licenses, food service business licences, and up to date health inspections must be earned in order to sell food on a food truck, carnival booth, or in a food cart.

There are so many things to account for before venturing out of doors to sell food. How much food should we be prepared to sell? What items should we sell? Do we need to be restocked once a day, three times a day, or all at once? What kind of staffing will this require and how many? Even if you are not selling food, such as at a church function or family reunion, these concerns are just the same.

Don't believe me? Just volunteer at your next opportunity to help cook at a BBQ at a park, and you will quickly see how complicated it can be just for your friends and family, let alone to be selling to the public. It's a good thing that there are people to handle all the logistics at a city celebration.

I don't know about you, but I am looking forward to going down to the lakefront again, walking outside without a coat or the 20 layers of clothes that Winter demands. Check out the list of upcoming events all over this city soon.

Beep, beep, sell

When you say food truck nowadays, most folks think of the wave of gourmet mobile feasts available these days near offices and at fairs. But in reality, this category has had a long history and includes the childhood favorite, the ice cream truck. The push-carts filled with Hispanic Popsicles, elotes, fried treats at the carnivals, and the Thunderbird lunch trucks at construction sites all are in the same category. The difference today is that the humble carts have upgraded and refigured themselves to include fresh made and/or made in truck to order foods of an endless array. The common fast foods are still available on carts and trucks, but the new iteration has included all types of cuisines, specialties, and gourmet items, ethnic menus are particularly popular on trucks as customers are seeking new experiences from the everyday lunch brake.

Lunch carts, carts of produce, and snacks are not a new concept. The blue-collar workforce has been utilizing the "roach coaches"over many generations now in America. These outlets are typically smaller trucks than this new edition, and they offer mostly prepackaged and precooked items in hot holding and refrigerated compartments on board. The larger and more diverse offerings revamped the idea of movable foods as the "roach coaches" popularity was in decline, and the desire for something new to eat was increasing. Chefs with established businesses and new upcoming chefs, saw an opportunity to expand their audiences. The city of Chicago was a bit later to the scene as the legislation that governed the food service industry was too constrictive to permit the new style of trucks. This wave crashed into another new concept that also was not permitted in Cook County, the concept of the shared kitchen.

The shared kitchen concept is simple enough, a kitchen approved and inspected, would allow more than one licensed company to use its facility. This ruffled more than one feature at city hall and it took a legal battle to lessen the laws about this concept and the food trucks to get my city to realize the world was changing and we needed to be apart of the new wave instead of getting drowned by it. New York and Los Angeles both had jumped ahead of Chicago with this concept and other cities like St. Louis and Memphis were sit to join the wave.

Now that the legal battle is done, and food trucks are popping up all over like the pop-up restaurant phenomenon, Chicago is firmly set in the newest craze. A large part of the legal battle for Chicago was about the place of food preparation. Chicago did not want to give licenses to truck operations that would be cooking on the truck itself. The traditional lunch truck was stocked with items prepackaged and prepped foods from a licensed outlet, therefore, the truck was only serving food that was held at proper temperature. Culinarians in this city asked the question "if the preparing person is licensed to legally prepare food for sale, and the truck has the proper equipment, then why can't food be prepared on board?" Licenses were given to the cruise ships at Navy Pier to prepare food on-board so why can't a truck be licensed? Chicago was practically the last metropolis to approve of food truck operation, in fact we had the distinction of being the only city in the U.S. that did not allow food trucks to cook on board.

Food trucks are now having their own fests in small towns, suburban areas, special events, and even weddings, movie shoots, corporate picnics, and expos. The diversity of offerings and the locations that they can service is wide open now leading to a greater opportunity for increasing or building a dedicated audience for a chef. There is one bit yet that limits where a food truck can operate, they must park their trucks no closer than 200 feet away from any restaurant, which almost completely eliminates their ability to park in downtown Chicago.

The same safety and sanitation legislation that applies to brick and mortar food establishments apply to trucks, and most truck outlets either are an extension of a traditional restaurant or have a dedicated kitchen to produce or prep their food offerings.  Permits, additional licenses, health inspections, sanitation inspections, may all be required depending upon location of operation. All of this insures that the consumer is protected from negative impacts to their health from purchasing the food offerings.

No matter if the truck is an extension of your favorite restaurant, or something very new to you, they can offer a new dinning experience that may change your idea of what you are craving. Gourmet donuts, Philippine tacos, Spanish tapas, to Indian curries can be had by way of a short walk to your vendor's truck.