The British Street Food Awards were founded back in 2009 by Food Mutiny, the events company started by award-winning food journalist and broadcaster Richard Johnson. Here is a bit about the BSFA as they stand now, with something on our media coverage, plus a look at sponsorship and collaboration in Britain, Europe and the US. After the success of the BSFA, street food took off to such an extent that, in 2017, the company decided to launch the European Street Food Awards and, this year, the USA Street Food Awards, snowballing it into the biggest street food competition in the world. Here, Johnson writes about how street food is still changing society.
I’m a food consultant. And, once upon a time, a restaurant critic. But the best meals I’ve ever eaten weren’t in a Michelin-starred establishment. They were on the streets. The streets of Bethlehem, with its hole-in-the-wall falafel shacks serving up fat pittas, stuffed with hummus, pickle and broad beans. The streets of New York. And the streets of Mandalay, where I first had fishy noodles – for breakfast – still salty from the sea. Street food is exciting. But you wouldn’t say that of street food in Europe. Until now.
I set up British Street Food and European Street Food as a line in the sand. No going back. And we held the first British Street Food Awards in 2010. In Ludlow, a farming community with a foodie pedigree. We wanted to shake off street food’s reputation for cheap sausages and overfried onions served off rusty metal handcarts. We’ve got more three-starred Michelin restaurants than Italy. So it was about time we got our street food sorted too. And make every single one of us proud to be British.
The best street food is affordable and fresh. And the best traders are specialists – they do a few dishes, and they do them very well. Their menu-not-so-fixe can change at a whim according to what looks good at the market that day. Which means that it’s seasonal and local. And they know that, if they ever let their standards slip, the public will just go to the stall next door. Only the strongest survive. Which is great news, now that the street is our dining room.
The new generation of mobilers have got none of the grit, or the grease, which used to authenticate the whole British street food experience. And their ingredients have changed too. Where you used to find limp white iceberg, you now find organic lamb’s ear. And where once you squeezed on an (unidentified) red sauce, you now find a rich, home-made tomato ketchup. That’s actually got tomatoes in it. The times are changing.
They say that our islands are too cold for street food. Rubbish. Korea gets snow in the winter, and there’s street food everywhere. With people queuing up to eat it. In Portland it’s the same. Admittedly, a bit of warm weather wouldn’t hurt. People would go out more, stay out more, and eat out more – the average Thai eats out 17 times a month. The best rice congee stalls in Bangkok only open up between 9pm and 4am. Is that the future for the street food sellers of Barnsley, Berlin and Budapest?
I will always remember (excuse me while I dream a little) the main square in Marrakesh where, at sundown, hundreds of stalls strung with different coloured lightbulbs started to cook. Sellers pulled on your shirtsleeve, or sang God Save The Queen – whatever it took to get your attention. And any table you chose was “the best seat in the house”. Whether you ordered the sheep’s head or the couscous, it all came with a dose of theatre.
In America, street food is all about the razzle dazzle. The Elysburg lemon sells the sweetest sourest homemade lemonade I’ve ever tasted. From a 10-ft fruit made of bright yellow polyurethane. Or Maximum Minimus, that sells pulled pork sandwiches from a lunch wagon that’s been transformed into a giant silver pig. It’s got ears, snout and a tail – and even a giant pair of sunglasses if it turns sunny.
Let’s celebrate our big wide world of food. We love burgers and chicken, but that doesn’t mean we want to be colonised by McDonalds and KFC. That would be a shame. We’re all different. The popularity of vadai (fried savoury lentil cakes) in India and nasi lemak (rice with eggs and savoury sambal sauce) in Malaysia proves that people still want traditional street foods as well as the imported alternatives.
Food is an adventure. Ask a resident of Mumbai, and they’ll tell you – with pride – that the city’s restaurants are for tourists. They just can’t compare with the authentic Indian food served by the blind chaatwala beside the open drain behind the railway station. And they are probably right. There’s something about discovering real street food that makes it tastier.
Eat out of your comfort zone. If you’re in the Philippines and want to try pig’s blood (known as Betamax after its rectangular shape) and chicken feet (known as Adidas), you should head for the streets. And if you want to try balut and penoy – duck eggs with and without fetus – it’s the streets where you’ll get lucky. If lucky is the right word.
Street food is huge across Europe. In Berlin it’s rösti—plate-sized portions of fried potato, slathered with apple sauce. And, in Rome, it’s pizza. Although street pizza is very different from the pizzeria pizza. Unlike the 12” rounds you find in a restaurant, “pizza a taglio” is generally made on large square trays, and sold by the rectangle. It’s easy to hold, and leaves you one hand free to steer your Vespa.
Street food has to be portable. So whether it’s a bunny chow (a scooped out loaf of bread filled with a creamy curry) in South Africa, or a bing (a light, airy pancake) in China, it needs to be good-to-go. That’s why, in the days of Dickens, Brits used to eat little larks as a snack between meals. They were one-bite big, and didn’t make a mess of your frock coat.
As we get set to enter the golden age of street food, those rules of thumb still hold true. With maybe a little less emphasis on the songbirds…