In ancient times, peddlers carried what they sold, made, repaired, or bartered on their backs. Then in fast succession came push carts, pulled carts, animal pulled carts, then carts with engines, to kitchen vehicles. Now we have Food Cart culture. Is there a commonality between these disparate things?
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Mobile Food Peddlers Thru History
Village Visits
As farming was introduced, people started to move from seasonal or nomadic living, to stationary living that created villages and towns. To get new wares, villagers relied on the traveling peddler who walked through the region selling, buying, or bartering what he (they were mostly men) had for what the villagers needed.
The photograph above shows a late 1800s peddler carrying his wares, and hawking the goods he has to sell. Of course this has been done since the times well before the Roman Empire, and in every continent where humans live.
- Wikipedia: A peddler, under English law, is defined as: “any hawker, pedlar, petty chapman, tinker, caster of metals, mender of chairs, or other person who, without any horse or other beast bearing or drawing burden, travels and trades on foot and goes from town to town or to other men’s houses, carrying to sell or exposing for sale any goods, wares, or merchandise immediately to be delivered, or selling or offering for sale his skill in handicraft.”
Markets
As people congregated in larger towns, they eventually created cities where the farmers came in daily to sell their foods. Over time, the temporary food stands came to include stands offering prepared foods like bread, jams, pickles, and even wares from blacksmiths and carpenters. Some of those early markets continue to this day, and are celebrated for their longevity and foods.
Brick-and-Mortar
Some of those markets became famous streets or areas and stalls were constructed to improve food safety, allow for regulations, and to make the market area a permanent fixture. These new stalls were then staffed for daily cooking and feeding the many people who frequented these areas. From Roman times, we have found little stands, from which people would sell street food to passers-by on their way to honor the gods, or perhaps a sporting event. Generally, they focused on one dish or one ingredient.
Mobile Carts
Simply put, in todays terms, a generic food cart is a mobile kitchen, set up to prepare and sell street food to passers-by. Throughout the world, they come in two flavors:
- Push Wagons (people powered)
- Pull Wagons (people, animal, or motored)
In olden times, the research shows food was sold from human-powered or animal-powered carts. FoodieUnderground writes, Push carts date back to the infant days of the United States; New Amsterdam, now known as New York City, began regulating mobile food vendors in the late 1600s.
Then came a series of inventions that modified food cart deliveries. For example the use of bicycles in 1817. In the 1850s, railroad dining cars began feeding their cross country train passengers, a new concept in mobile food carts. Followed by motorized bikes (1868), autos (1886), and trucks (1896).
Military Influences
Of course, the military also influenced the development of traveling kitchens and food. They recognized the need for ongoing food supplies to feed their soldiers and many innovations have been made to accommodate this task over the years. In ~1917 the US Army mobile canteens, aka field kitchens, were created to feed troops.
Sheep and Cow Herder Influences
But what do you do when your job is to stay with an animal herd, taking them to better pastures, and eventually bringing them back to the barn for the winter, or herding them to the markets. How do you feed those people, when farms or towns are not close by and nearly every man, horse, and dog are out working the sheep or cattle? The answer of course was the inclusion of a cook with food and supplies assigned to every herding group.
Summation
Humans have always traveled among tribes, villages and cities selling wares, buying new things, and bartering. These paths, overtime, became trade routes and some very famous like the Silk Road. But also part of that was the introduction of selling food from a stand, either raw or cooked. This was a great way to make a living, and an easy way to be fed.
We are a technology species, so we evolved from walking and carrying what we want to sell, to pushing and pulling carts so we can carry more, to having animals do that for us to carry even more stuff including us, and finally to creating engines and kitchen vehicles.
A long line of innovations, based on real needs, bring us to the mid 1880s and Chuck Wagons.
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Feeding the Shepards + Cowboys
The solution for herding groups was not a new idea, but built on all that came before. They decided to use a a food wagon that carried important supplies beyond food, such as first aid, to serve as the “hearth” for the herdsmen (shepherds if herding sheep, and cowboys if herding cattle). The mobility food cart idea came from a long line of food vendors who have used a variety of vehicles to support their activity, and the food idea came from necessity.
USA Chuck Wagons
Insp wrote that the chuck wagon was “invented” by Cattleman Colonel Charles Goodnight and partner Oliver Loving in 1866. They were planning to drive a herd of 2,000 longhorns all the way from Texas, to Colorado, with few towns in-between. The planning they were doing had to include feeding the Cowboys and holding onto some of their limited gear (bedrolls, blanket, and slickers). To carry all this, they decided to convert an old, surplus Studebaker ammunition wagon into a vehicle that could handle the storage of Cowboy’s gear, first aid gear, food supplies, and cooking equipment. Oxen, horses, or mules would pull these heavily laden wagons.
At that time, apparently, Cowboys referred to good, hearty, basic food as chuck, and so the slang term chuck-wagon started to be used.
- One website wrote specifically, that “Chuck” derived from 17th Century England as meat merchants who referred to their lower priced goods as “Chuck”.
Cookie was often the generic term used to identify the cook (1). This covered wooden wagon has thus been considered by some, as the first food truck (as opposed to cart).
Chuck Wagon Etiquette
- No one eats until Cookie calls out
- A cowboy should never help himself to food without Cookie’s permission
- Never take the last piece of food until every man has had his meal
- Eat first; talk later
- Finish your food. A plate not licked clean is an insult to the cook
- Riders coming into or away from camp should always be downwind from the chuck wagon to avoid dust blowing into the food
- Do not use the Cookie’s workspace as a dining table
- If a cowboy is refilling his coffee cup, and someone yells, “Man at the pot,” the cowboy is obligated to fill every cup that’s held out, along with his own.
- Strangers are always welcome
Chuck Wagon Cooking Ware
From what I could find online, here is what they would carry for food prep:
- Heavy cast iron Dutch oven with legs and a rimmed lid, placed directly on the hot coals
- Large (~20C) enamel coffee pot
- Various prep utensils, including tin plates, ‘eatin’ irons (2)
- Extra kettles and pots
- Crossbar and fire hooks
- Dishpan for mixing bread
- Kettle for heating washing water
- Pan for dirty dishes
- A “squirrel can” for scraps
Chuck Wagon Pantry
The cooks would take advantage of where they were, to gather up local foods as a way to augment the ongoing bean-based stews. So they may serve catfish from a local lake, or shrimp from coastal areas.
They also carried lots of pounds of food with them in the wagon. Along with barrels of water, firewood (and cow-pies) their pantry was critical since there was no guarantee they would pass towns or farms to barter (with a steer) what they may need, such as fresh eggs or vegetables. So what did they carry with them:
- Flour + cornmeal + baking soda and powder
- Lard
- Sourdough starter
- Sugar + molasses
- Salt + pepper
- Bacon, dried pork
- Dried fruit (like raisons, apples, and prunes, 3)
- Potatoes + onions (sometimes cabbage, corn, 4)
- Beans (pinto + black-eyed peas)
- Rice
- Coffee
Important to carry as well, they often had some blacksmith tools, sewing kits, first aid materials, various other tools, and a large tarp to create a sitting area out of the inclement weather.
A note about coffee: Early trail drives carried green coffee beans which required roasting before grinding. In 1865, two brothers, Charles and John Arbuckle, who were grocers in Pittsburgh, Pa. patented a process for roasting coffee beans. They roasted beans with a mix of egg white and sugar to preserve freshness. Pre Roasted coffee was so successful that this process is still used today.
Food Trucks Feeding the Rest of Us
Several websites, including History, have the understanding that our modern food trucks stem from two separate dining traditions that predate even the invention of the automobile itself. Chuck wagons and pushcarts served cowboys and urban workers, respectively, all the way back to the years right after the Civil War.
Davison wrote that by the 1890s, big cities like New York began to hitch onto the food wagon idea when ‘night lunch wagons’ became a staple. These wagons were created in order to cater to night time workers. Many of these trucks did such good business that, despite being mobile, they stayed in one spot.
While hand or bicycle push carts generally lacked the ability to cook food, they did serve “easy to grab and eat” lunches that were prepared elsewhere: meat pies, fruits and sandwiches to urban (New York + Chicago) dwellers. Garment workers, construction men and delivery boys relied upon the carts for cheap and filling nourishment in the middle of busy days. While the design of the chuck wagons was closer to our modern day trucks, the purpose of the pushcarts – to provide a reasonable lunch to working urban folk – was much nearer to the purpose of the trucks today.
In 1936 Oscar Meyer hot dog cart was rolled out to adoring fans. Later, during the 1950’s, well after the invention of the automobile, ice cream trucks were driven through neighborhoods to sell that treat directly to children and adults. The 1960’s had larger, so-called roach coaches, serving tacos and burgers on the street to consumers, but mainly aimed at hungry construction workers. And importantly, in 1974 the first actual Taco Truck served its food outside an East Los Angeles bar (6).
By the 2000s we have many food trucks serving a variety of wonderfully ethic foods, or foods inspired by culture, from all over the world: Korean, Japanese, Mexican, Jewish, etc. They specialize in one area and are now competing with the fast-food restaurants.
Summation
From ancient times to now, there is something about eating food that others have created for you. As of September 2022, there are ~30,156 food trucks out there serving customers all over the streets of USA towns and cities. Most of them are in California rated #1 and Texas rated #2 in the number of food trucks. This is an amazing 8.1% increase from 2021 and shows one of the aftereffects of the pandemic; we want to eat the food, but are still a bit uncomfortable in close packed restaurants.
I thing this cursory view of how we have served food, on the go, is clear that we love eating out and that technology has played a large part in how food is served. Well, that and it does need to taste good.
—Patty
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