[tv dinner dish] Great Food Truck Race redux [spoilers]

I was pretty happy about the outcome of this year's contest.

I'm not a huge fan of the green sweatbands the Lime Truck dudes wore, but their food sounded delicious: fresh, healthy and full of flavor, color and texture. If I saw their truck in my neighborhood, I would drop everything to try it out.

I also became a fan of Hodge Podge when Chef Hodge's noncooking sister and girlfriend not only held down the fort in Atlanta, but captured the win during that segment. Grace under pressure.

Roxy's Grilled Cheese took a lot of heckling from Hodge Podge, which I found rather unfair; the sandwiches Roxy turned out looked insanely good and far more gourmet than the "cheese between two slices of bread" that Hodge reduced them to. I mean, come on, a Mushroom Melt? Confit of wild mushrooms, baby swiss, fresh arugula? I'm down with that!

I was happy to see the Sea Birds go, if only because they whined so much about being a vegan option they kinda forgot that that's why they were special in the first place.

And booooooo! to the Korilla truck for trying to pull a fast one by supplementing their receipts with an illegal cash infusion; they were my favorite team going in until Tyler Florence busted them outright on national TV and sent them home with their tiger tails between their legs. And that's a crying shame; a bulgoki taco is about the tastiest new food to make my home cooking menu... yum-my!

This year, the show made me think about how far mobile eateries have come.

The history for American food trucks can be boiled down to this (informal) timeline:

1. Chuckwagons in the west in the late 1800s

Mobile food was rather a matter of necessity in the beginning. Food wagons were part and parcel of the Westward Movement as well as one key way in which ranchers fed their cowboys on the range. Mobile catering also became a  necessary delivery system for food during times of war and natural disaster.

2. Lunch wagons and food cart vendors in the big cities in the early 1900s

It's hard to say what inspired the lunch wagons and street cart vendors in the big cities aside from good ol' American ingenuity, though traveling food purveyors at the Chicago World's Fair might have had a hand in introducing the concept as something that could be fun and upper class as well as utilitarian. (Bread and circuses, anyone?)

3. The Good Humor man heads for the suburbs in the 1930s

Probably he merged smart business strategy during the post-Depression economy (take your product to those masses who still had money to spend on it) with the national desire for something cheap, sweet and comforting during bad times.

4. The quintessential "roach coach" begins to visit blue-collar sites in the 1960s

This movement in the middle to late part of the century probably took off because of the get-back-to-work mentality of American men in manufacturing, industry and union work following World War II.

5. Taco trucks begin to appear in the 1970s

Problem for the same reason as roach coaches, except they aimed to serve the needs of Mexican immigrants.

6. Mobile food vendors elevate the experience, sometimes to a gourmet level, in the early 2000s

Now we have food trucks serving caviar, black truffle, pate and seafood, certainly a reflection of America's obsessive fantasy with high-end food despite the latest economic downturn; maybe it's the notion that a lobster roll plate sold off a truck is somehow more affordable (even though, chances are, it's not)?

I think the presence of today's food trucks are indicative of the times, not at all a fad like some would imagine. Food trucks can circumvent the problem of the bad brick-and-mortar location which is one of the reasons why so many restaurants go out of business. They can also be hired for private events and can serve temporarily oversized groups of consumers (like festival goers) one day, then go back to their normal curbside location the next with little negative impact on the overhead.

All I can say is, Seattle is way behind in the food truck scene than most of the rest of the country (Los Angeles is credited with being the originator of the current movement). I hope that changes soon! Maybe a truck like Where Ya At, Matt? (New Orleans food) or Pai's (Hawaiian food) or Veraci Pizza (towing a handmade woodfire oven) will make it on to the next Great Food Truck Race.