When it comes to street food, immigration and globalization have been nothing but great for these United States. From the turn of the 20th century, new arrivals to these shores manned pushcarts serving the foods of their home countries; a century later, that trend has proliferated and has spawned a new wave of haute street food and appetites to match. In big and smaller cities, America today has embraced the peripatetic and pop-up charms of the sorts of vibrant food carts, trucks, and street-side stands that have long fueled cities such as Bangkok, Mexico City, and Mumbai. We love fast, fresh, flavor-packed street food of all stripes here at Gourmet Live, so we're dedicating this issue to the best of street fare's traditional and nouveau incarnations.
We begin with a BlogHer Road Trip to sample Food Truck Favorites From Coast to Coast. This tour of rolling refreshments stops in Maine, Hawaii, Oregon, and seven other states for empanadas, teriyaki burgers, softshell crab BLTs, gluten-free chocolate brownies, and more.
How great is the title, Susan Feniger's Street Food: Irresistibly Crispy, Creamy, Crunchy, Spicy, Sticky, Sweet Recipes? We are equally captivated by the international travelogues and recipes in this new book from Feniger, chef and owner of Los Angeles' Street restaurant and a street-food seller herself via the truck and kiosk she and Mary Sue Milliken run in tandem with their Mexican-inspired Border Grill restaurants. In this issue of Gourmet Live, Feniger tells the story of how and where she fell madly in love with street food and presents three summer-friendly recipes you can make at home: a Burmese melon salad, Indian sweet potato pancakes, and Thai tea pudding with homemade sweets on top.
For more inspiration—and the skills to execute the crunchy dishes you desire—see Eight Great Tips for Deep-Frying, a user-friendly how-to from chef-instructor Hervé Riou of New York's Institute of Culinary Education. Have no fear, he covers choosing the right oil, vessel, and seasoning for perfectly cooked, golden-brown, never-greasy fried foods. Use your new skills in dozens of recipes on Gourmet.com.
You'll also want to devour a slideshow of photography by acclaimed street-food documentarian Jean-François Mallet. This sumptuous visual ode to street food around the globe ranges from São Paulo to Shanghai, from exquisite berries as beautiful as a bouquet to a tempting wokful of sizzling minced pork and cabbage—little surprise, perhaps, that Mallet is a former chef.
For more flavorful fare, explore this summer's Gourmet Special Edition, Easy Dinners. It's packed with 109 recipes streamlined for ease, including cart-worthy dishes like Chipotle Chicken Tacos. You'll find Easy Dinners on sale now at retailers nationwide, such as Barnes & Noble, Whole Foods, and Hudson News.
What's cooking on your corner? What and where is the best street food you've ever had? Tempt us via Twitter or Facebook, drop us a line, or post a comment on our blog. For more tasty bites, sign up for our weekly newsletter to get convenient access to our most-read blog posts, editors' favorite recipes, and exclusive reader offers.
Thanks for hitting the streets with us!
The editors of Gourmet Live