New Book Highlights Austin’s Food Trucks
John T. Edge drew on Austin's food-truck scene for parts of his book. Photo by Filipa Rodrigues/KUT NewsAudio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Food trailer parks have sprung up around Austin over the past few years, with vendors offering everything from doughnuts to noodles to steaks. National food writer John T. Edge is author of The Truck Food Cookbook, which is filled with recipes from the country’s best trailer chefs. The book includes several trucks from Austin. Edge talked with KUT’s Ben Philpott about the democratic nature of the trailer-food scene.
What’s so great about the scene here is that connectivity between working-class and haute trucks, between old guard and new. The last time I checked, and I’m sure this has changed, Austin had over 1,000 licensed vendors. There may be 200 new-guard vendors, but the great majority of what makes this city such a great, vital street-food scene are the old-guard Mexican-American cooks and the old-guard Mexican-American trucks.
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