Magna Carts

The 3rd annual food cart festival wrapped up over the weekend - Portland has around 500 legal food carts. The food cart has evolved, what used to be the ‘roach-wagon’ is now the low-rent darling of the foodatistas. This is a turn of events that I should embrace. Financially, the carts are all the things you want - A low-overhead, cash enterprise based on a product rather than a credit driven derivative; a business that doesn’t rely on marketing expertise and one that has a low enough capital investment that gives people a chance to realize the long hours of physically demanding, mentally repetitive work before they buy a restaurant of their own. Culinarily, proprietors must focus on a narrow if not singular menu options. Make the best Korean beef, curry, noodles, bahn mi or burrito – you don’t need 20 additional items to round out your menu – do one thing, do it very well and focus on your strength in order to grow and be successful. For consumers – the carts might be the last bastions of the affordable lunch. As an added bonus, the carts are a thorn in the side of restaurant association and chamber of commerce types who publicly decry any government oversight until they want to drive the carts out of existence through selective enforcement of regulations.

I should be a booster of these particular small businesses but something gets lost in the translation. If you love food there is an unspoken belief that you must love all things about it. Worse still, if you love food, you are supposed to love what is new and creating a buzz but love is fickle though and I just don’t love the carts.

I don’t hate the carts - I hate ketchup, jars of mayo, personable waiters, flavorless chicken and tasteless produce – what I almost hate is the cart culture. Ever since a developer built a ‘cart-pod’ 100 feet from my apartment - J’accuse cart enthusiasts of 3 great crimes – the attraction to skinny jeans is unforgivable; their general lack of interest in cooking wounds me but the cartsters speak highly of foods that are just salt and fat wrapped in an indie/DYI attitude, rolled into a burrito shape and dipped in Sriracha. Liking foods that come out of the fryer isn’t that difficult - keep eating like that and your jeans aren’t going to fit – sorry, they are going to fit less than they already do.

Dan Savage commented and linked to a nice defense of skinny jean’d hipsters last week at the Slog. I am too lazy to lookfor it but it went something like this – who cares if people who are the same age and like the same music and work industry jobs hang out together even if the girls wear a beehive and the boys have beards. But before he reached the plateau of compassion, Dan ranted about the boys beards much in the same way, I find myself ranting about what is wrong with the foods they eat. If I slow myself down – it isn’t the food: It doesn’t offend me they aren’t eating fine cheese but the cartsters drive to the food pod, that’s right they drive to the establishments with wheels – to eat fried food or ‘vegan’ sushi and act like they have invented something. Everyone is uniquely indie eating at the same carts, having the same number of tats, owning the same iphone – it is almost like their personal identity is all about what they own and consume to the point they have confused what they buy with what they do and think.

And yes I can tell all that from 100 feet away in my apartment - now get off my lawn. What happened to me? BTW- the winner of the cart festival, The Frying Scotsman. 

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