FLORENCE, ITALY – More than 50 festivals throughout Italy that drew about 600,000 visitors last year, with peaks of more than 100,000 visitors registered at the Turin Street Food Parade. These are the numbers of the food truck phenomenon in Italy, the trucks (especially Ape car) travelling with kitchen equipped for offering quality food.
To provide data of this tradition from the US and Britain was the sociologist at the University of Bicocca Milan, Stefano Marras, president of the association Street Food Square and editor of the book Street food: cultures, economy health and governance. The book was presented at the Slow Food Pavillon, Expo2015, in Milan.
This volume is one of the first to provide a comprehensive social science perspective on street food, illustrating its immense cultural diversity and economic significance, both in developing and developed countries.
Key issues addressed include: policy, regulation and governance of street food and vendors; production and trade patterns ranging from informal subsistence to modern forms of enterprise; the key role played by female vendors; historical roots and cultural meanings of selling and eating food in the street; food safety and nutrition issues. Many chapters provide case studies from specific cities in different regions of the world.
These include North America (Atlanta, Philadelphia, Portland, Toronto, Vancouver), Central and South America (Bogota, Buenos Aires, La Paz, Lima, Mexico City, Montevideo, Santiago, Salvador da Bahia), Asia (Bangkok, Dhaka, Penang), Africa (Accra, Abidjan, Bamako, Freetown, Mozambique) and Europe (Amsterdam).
In Italy the phenomenon of the food truck is characterized by the quality of products but not for the cheapness: for a Chianina burger, for example, you can get to spend up to 8 Euros.
Photo: Danilo D’Auria/StreetFood Florence