Foodie Festivals Take It to the Streets

If you’re not aware of the street food trend in San Francisco, you either live under a rock or simply don’t eat. Would-be street eaters are enduring waits comparable to those at the hottest indoor eateries in town. There are, after all, no reservations for street carts.

 

Carts pepper the entire Bay Area daily, utilizing Twitter to announce their presence; you can track them real-time via the SF Cart Project map. And on every Friday, a density of them circle the wagons in San Francisco’s Fort Mason for Off the Grid. Locals of all stripes descend on the parking lot, queueing up into a tangle of humanity awaiting the oppotunity to nom on Indian burritos, pork buns, banana fritters and more.

 

Street food may be de rigueur in other parts of the world, but in the litigious United States, it’s been a tough row to hoe for mobile vendors to extract permits from local authorities. As such, eating at a cart is equal parts hedonism and activism. This year’s SF Street Food Festival, August 21, is playing both sides of that coin. On the one hand, of course, there will be food (and drink!) carts, enough to sate the grumbliest belly, so be sure to purchase a passport to free your hands to the function of eating rather than fumbling for cash. (Pepto Bismol is an anchor sponsor; we’re not sure if there will be free samples on hand. We do not think it’s commentary on the food offerings.) For other delights and distractions, join a three-week scavenger hunt, already in progress, bid in a silent auction or submit pics of street food to win fun prizes. But if you want to feed your mind as well as your gut, invest in tickets to the conference the following two days, where panels will cast a keen eye on the economic and political policies surrounding street food.

 

The other major food activism movement in the Bay Area and beyond is the drive to eschew industrial food. This back-to-roots mentality is marked by a focus on consuming foods that are locally and sustainably sourced, and by a DIY sensibility by home food preservers and producers. The spirit of this movement is celebrated in the three-day Eat Real Festival in Oakland, August 27-29. Guess what? There’ll be street food vendors — LOTS of them — but also so much more. DIYers will submit their best jams, pickles, kombucha and homebrews in an urban homesteading contest, and esteemed producers will do live demos on such things as how to make your own ketchup, cheese, kimchi and home-roasted coffee. There’ll conveniently be a goat butchering demonstration, handy for the goat you’ll probably need to sacrifice to the parking gods. (Hint: Take BART.) The festival also aims to nourish the soul, with belly-bopping beats, an urban glean effort, and an Eat Real Lit Fest designed to spark the synapses. By Sunday evening, you’re sure to be well and truly sated.

 

[Photo: Sarah Peet]