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Food

Why Pubs Are Key to the Survival of British Street Food

Street food has developed differently around the UK but what’s vital now is working out how street food survives over the winter.
Photo courtesy of British Street Food.

My street food epiphany began in New York around 2002 when I saw the possibilities. At the time, I was restaurant critic and eating out on expense accounts. I was travelling quite a lot with work and seeing how other countries put food street food at the middle of everything they did. But when I was at home with friends and family, the food that I wanted to eat just wasn't available.

The UK was just starting the process of re-inventing itself in terms of food. We weren't the butt of the world's joke about food anymore but in terms of street food, there wasn't really wasn't more than those rusty metal handcarts which got pushed around Trafalgar Square at night bus time.

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I set up the British Street Food Awards in 2009 because there were like-minded individuals starting to work in really interesting vans and trucks and trailers. I suppose they'd developed from farmers markets. With an understanding of ingredients, people had started to pedal them in an interesting way.

What I saw to be the street food revolution was starting to happen.

For the first awards in 2010, we struggled to fill one car park in Ludlow with like-minded traders. Now, we've got to the point where we have five regional heats and for the first time this year, we went to Belfast. People see that street food is an interesting area to watch because the new faces of the high street will come from there.

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The British Street Food Awards 2016 final in Birmingham. Photo courtesy of British Street Food.

It's become an alternative entry point for young people who have become excited by food. You don't have to work in a restaurant kitchen if you want to get your food in front of the British public. There's a quicker way and a more rock and roll way where you keep control of everything. It's your voice on every level. That idea of keeping it real chimes very much with the times that we live in. These are menus driven by the man or the woman who has cooked it.

A lot of the restaurant openings from the past couple of years have begun on the streets but I don't think it's inevitable that street food goes into bricks and mortar. There are lots of people I know on the streets who would do anything than open up a restaurant. They love the temporary nature of it but there are just as many out there who see street food as a means to an end and dream of a permanent home.

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It can be a danger when opening a restaurant that you lose something, but the point still is to deliver a quality end product. So, if people can keep control over their quality then I don't see a problem with it. Growing bigger doesn't always mean that you lose track. It does mean that you change and evolve. But they would be foolish to turn their backs on the streets completely. It's a very good way to test products that you just can't replicate in a restaurant.

Street food has developed around the UK differently. In Northern Ireland, there are some really exciting things happening. There are farmers and producers who are getting into street food because they want to grow their business. There's one particular farm, who won the best snack category at this year's awards, who are raising male goats that are usually just slaughtered because they're no good for goat milk, and using the kid meat in burgers and tacos.

Scotland is quite slow to get started but that's a lot to do with politics. Sometimes it's hard when you're dealing with a council who just sees street food as something that creates more work for street cleaners. You're not going to have the imaginative development in town planning.

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I think what's vital is working out how street food goes indoors. For example, with the British Street Food Pub Takeover app and website we're developing, residencies in pubs can give street food a home in the winter and a base for deliveries.

It'll allow street food to grow and develop beyond just a summer thing.

As told to Daisy Meager.

Richard Johnson is a London-based food journalist and author of Street Food Revolution, a book documenting the stories of stallholders around Britain. He founded the British Street Food Awards in 2009 as an annual celebration of the UK's best curbside traders.