Festival Food Trucks: How To Eat Your Way Around The World In 80 Hours

Guest post by Dom Bailey

Car packed, tent, sleeping bag, spare pair of boxers, toothbrush, and wellies (just in case), and we're ready to head for The Levellers' Beautiful Days music festival in Devon.

Just about to pull off, when my father-in-law asks "is this bacon in the fridge for your festival?" Nice thought, but who takes bacon to a music festival? We shrug and hit the A303.

Festival food says as much about a festival as its toilets - not what you go for, but you're happy if it’s of a high standard. Festivals are no longer catered for solely by hot dogs or greasy burger vans - the Slough dual-carriageway "Three Nation" types where burgers, Chinese food, and kebabs swim in the same grease, absent of any subtleties the original recipes may have once had.

And it's not all veggie burgers and lentil cutlets either. At most festivals nowadays you can eat your way "around the world" and back again, such is the variety of food stalls on offer.

Beautiful Days is no exception. In fact, the global route could take you from Indian curries, to Italian pizza and pasta, Mediterranean kebabs, English fish and chips, Spanish paella, Thai, Japanese noodles and Tibetan stews, and that’s just for starters.

Or you may choose to eat your way "around the farm", with hog roasts, beef dumplings, lamb shish, chicken paella, and ostrich burgers. Or "around a health food shop" - from vegan mushroom burgers and liquorice sticks to a Liverpudlian speciality of patisserie (it wasn't exactly a stall, just a guy with a biscuit tin wandering around whispering "ash cakes?")

Ultimately, it's up to you whether or not a music festival - which can involve a 20-minute queue to the bar, a 15-minute queue for food, a 10-minute "oops sorry, excuse me, excuse me, why are you dressed as a Rubik's Cube, get out of the f***ing way" wade through the crowd to wait for the 20 minute sound check, and then the hour-long set, then the 15 minute post-set queue for the portaloos - is really the place to try an Indian phall for the first time. Or whether it's the right time to decide that an ostrich burger won't count 'cos you're vegetarian most of the time at home.

A stick-to-what-you-know, or are vaguely familiar with, approach doesn't mean you are going to miss out on quality food, but it may mean you miss out on less bands. You could always leave the delicious Tibetan Kitchen sha shi sesame chicken for the last night - then you've only got to worry about about the Little Chef toilets on the way home (sorry Heston).

So, what is the best festival food?

The Tibetan Kitchen could make an entry with its momo dumplings filled with spinach, cheese and garlic. Pure Pie's just-thick-enough shortcrust pastry casing - with saucy fillings like steak and horseradish, or pork and mustard - are winners at the end of a long day drinking cider in the sun followed by a long night jigging around to bands like Mad Dog Mcrea.

Freshly stone-baked pizza (which didn't seem to stay open long enough) were also quality, as were the Mediterranean stall's lamb kebab or falafel pittas. The Real Sausage Company always seemed to have a healthy queue for its real sausages. You can see where I'm going here, the key to festival food is that it has to be comforting, familiar, filling and easy to eat.

For some unknown reason - probably a family feud-related incident on the Cornwall-Devon border, I don't know - I didn't spot anywhere selling pasties. There were more pasties being sold 180 miles away on Ealing Broadway station than in a field with a captive audience of 12,500 people, 40 miles from Kernow.

They would have been the outright winner. They keep their heat, are filling, and you don't need to balance a plate and a pint and keep a hand free for cutlery. And, a half-eaten one will quickly slot into your pocket and keep its shape (probably) when you have to dash off to hear Carter USM knock out Sheriff Fatman.

But the true festival winner is even simpler than the pasty - a good old bacon sarnie. And it doesn't even have to be from a stall. Some of the camping Beautiful Dazers had brought their own.

Now, there are festival-goers who camp, and there are campers who go to festivals. The former include the category of "Shit, I thought I'd packed my sleeping bag, now I have to sleep in my rucksack..."

Some don't make it fully into the tent after binging on two-litre bottles of Thatchers cider. Their comatose bodies, half frozen from sticking out of the tent all night, being tripped over and pissed on, and half baking inside, where the drying pool of vomit may, or may not be, their own. I thought my bag of Bombay mix, a litre of water, and two packets of chewing gum was cheating a bit, until I took my first festival morning stumble through the tents.



An unmistakeable, cheery clink of cutlery seems out of place. A kettle whistles, a coffee percolator plunges, Tarquin is poured another bowl of Kellogg's Crunchy Nuts into his favourite bowl. These were professional campers - or just families, probably - but it would have taken a small team of Sherpas to get some of their kit from the four by four to the camp site.

Three nights in a field in Devon, but some of them had packed for a month lion hunting on the Serengeti. "Damn it, forgot the garlic crusher, darling!"

Some inbetweeners had portable barbeques, and calor gas stoves, which I suppose could be forgiven as the overwhelming smell wafting through the morning or afternoon air is bacon.

Tantalising, reassuring bacon. The smell of bacon that says: “Okay, you're in a field, you can't remember half the bands you saw last night and your head is on the verge of exploding or imploding, you're not sure, but everything’s okay because there is bacon...”

Cook it yourself and the choice is yours - brown bread, white bread, no bread, just ketchup, brown sauce, with cheese, with cheese and mustard, with Marmite. I've never quite understood the salad bit of a BLT. Even the Germans don't have salad for breakfast.

But if you're not a fully-fledged Camping and Caravanning Club member, and haven't even got a ‘Hexi Stove’ to cook a few rashers, you have to rely on the stalls. Someone else has to cook your bacon, your hangover cure, your comfort blanket.

I had two bacon sandwiches while there - one amazing, one not so much. The latter was a double bacon and sausage bap. Double meant two rashers and two uninspiring sausages, in an oversized floury bap. The ratio is very important. You don't want the salty, meaty taste lost in a mouthful of floury pillow.

The best was as simple as it gets. Two slices of granary bread, enough bacon to pile over and cover the bread surface area, a fried egg and your choice of sauce. With a mug of tea, of course. Okay, it's a dribbly, saucy mess after the first mouthful, but it really hits the spot and puts you back on track for another day of festivalling.

And served out of a double-decker London bus, it couldn't get more Beautiful Days than that. Thank you, The Tea Stop.

What we ate:

Chips and pea-mint sauce - crispy chips, nicely minted sauce (£3.50 The Sea Cow but calling itself Fish and Chips).

Quesadilla - flour tortilla with a thin filling of cheese, avocado, salsa and jalapeno peppers, folded and toasted a little on the hot plate (£4.50 - Mexican Vegetarian).

Ostrich burger - with Jack Daniels onion barbeque sauce and cheese in a floury bap (£7). Tasty burger made of ostrich from Berwick-upon-Tweed, but too much bread to burger ratio. I ‘heart’ ostrich was perhaps the most confusing name for a stall, given the hippyish audience. I ‘heart’ dolphin wouldn't have seemed out of place, but you wouldn't have expected to get a Flipper fricassee. Carter did quip "if you love ostriches so much, stop killing them!"

The Pure Pie crusty saucy, meaty round pies. I got two for £5 at the end of the night, which can't be bad. "You can save one till morning," was his pitch, but that was never going to happen.

Wraps and Baps - luxury falafel - four pieces, olives, garlic mushrooms, in a wrap cone which after the top layer was mainly iceberg lettuce. (£8)

Lamb kebab with couscous in a pitta. Delicious if a bit messy (about £6.50)

Double bacon and sausage bap - In the Night Garden. Double meant two rashers and two uninspiring sausages, in an oversized floury bap (£3.50).

Momo dumplings - with meatball or cheese and spinach fillings. They were nice enough to give us a taster of the sesame chicken, and the chickpea and spinach stew. Both were fantastic and the chicken was beautifully seasoned and tender (£1 dumpling taster).

Bacon and egg sandwich - The Tea Stop. A double decker bus of joy. THE hangover cure (£3.50).

:: Dom Bailey is a writer and musician. His songs are here on domssongs.blogspot.com.

Going To California (In A Food Truck)

This week I had lunch with a fat man called Boris. A few years ago I’d done a bit of freelance writing for a food mag and Boris was the editor-at-large (a title that owed more to his size than salary). He was now a publisher.

For some reason, whether it was the wine and brandy or just a misguided belief in my cooking and writing abilities, he said he wanted to commission me to write a book about training to be a chef, and that I should buy an old banger and drive along the west coast of the US, working in fish restaurants in San Francisco and food trucks in LA et al and writing about my experiences along the way.

“California’s one of the food capitals of the world,” he said breathlessly, dripping shallot vinegar over another oyster and tilting his head back and swallowing with a rather disturbing look on his face.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and his piggy eyes scanned our fruit de mers for more morsels. There were just a few sorry-looking whelks and winkles nestled in the melting ice on his side of the table. His trotter reached over and grabbed the crab I was saving.

“Do you mind old bean?”

I shook my head and he snatched the greasy nutcrackers and got to work on a large brown claw. There were white spindles of crab and lobster meat in his beard.

“It’ll be brilliant. There are thousands out there who want to be chefs, but are too afraid to do it.”

“Or too sane,” I muttered

But Boris wasn’t listening. He was off somewhere in one of his happy, gluttononous dreams, fondly remembering times his 20-stone bulk danced nimbly around the stove. He stopped suddenly and his narrow eyes glittered.

“Arm-chair chefs! That’s it! It’s for the ARM-CHAIR CHEFS! It’ll be like those travel guides for people who are far too scared to actually hack their own way through the jungle, but are more than happy to read about someone else doing it!

“There are masses of foodies out there, obsessed with what goes on in a kitchen – how the professionals really do it – the tricks of the trade! They’d like nothing more than to snuggle up in front of the fire, with the cat on their lap and a big mug of tea steaming away next to them, reading about the honest gruel of kitchen labour…”

He ordered another brandy.

“You’ll have to keep a diary though - write everything down. The funny anecdotes and stuff…”

“Yeah, but what’s the angle?” I said hesitantly. I was already thinking about the heat and long hours, and how I’d be throwing myself back into the furnace again.

But I couldn’t deny it; the excitement was growing inside me. I especially loved the idea of working in a few of the food trucks that had sparked a culinary revolution in the US.

The names alone had a magic to them – Dim Sum Charlie’s, Cochon Volant Flying Pig BBQ, the Rolling Sushi Van. There would even be a bit of fresh air to be had. It would be like working for that film location catering firm, and I’d loved that.

Boris was still talking...

“It’s brilliant! Take a year off, scootle down the west coast in an old jalopy and learn the trade. I just wish I could do it myself, but what with the mortgage and the bloody kids…I can’t be on the breadline again, you know that. But you’re alright – you haven’t got any!”

“I’m a bit rusty...” I said.

“You’ll be alright – just bring the kitchen to life for all those arm-chair chefs out there. Just the basics on what you need to learn to become a professional cook. Improve your dinner parties no end!

“You know...knife skills, different vegetable cuts, knowing the difference between brunoise and julienne. Prepping meat, veg and fish, knowing how to portion and store food, stock control, that sort of thing.”

He took another swig of wine and topped himself up. I still wasn’t sure if the lunch was on him.

“Garnishes - making dishes look nice. Making pastry and dough, what to look for when buying food from the market. Has the fish got bright eyes and red gills? If not, why not!”

“Why not?”

“It’s all got to be there, you know! Fill it with cooking techniques, recipes, and pad out the rest with anecdotes. You know the stuff – you’re good at it. And you’ve got the passion for it!”

The last was his trump card, and we both knew it. He had the same romantic view of the kitchen I had. He’d worked as a chef for ten years in London and LA before he got too tired and took an easy job sitting behind a desk all day, writing about food, and making occasional forays to the pass.

He wrote restaurant reviews from the kitchen – that way, he always said, you could try everything going out, not just what you ordered, and got a fairer view of the menu. And, of course, he could stuff himself with more food that way.

I’d often wondered whether there was any real difference between a foodie and a glutton. People will tell you foodies care more about the provenance and quality of the food they eat, but gluttons will just eat anything.

I’m not so sure. I’ve eaten many a mucky, late-night kebab or Chicken Geoff with a top chef or manager whose seasonal, animal-barcoded, locally-sourced menu reads like a hymn sheet to River Cottage. But to be fair, it’s what you savour after a night cooking or serving quality restaurant food.

Boris broke open another claw and began reminiscing about his days working in kitchens in California and as a private chef for Hollywood stars.

“I burnt everything old bean. Everything!”

His eyes glittered with passion, too much wine, and the wetness of longing regret as he told me about the smoke and the heat, the shameful, napkin-concealed ortolan feasts, and the thousands of pounds of caviar, lobster and foie gras he’d shoved down his throat.

“But first we’ll have to get your knife skills up to speed again. Can’t have you rocketing off to California, cutting off fingers! Otherwise it’ll be a very short book indeed!”

And that was it. Boris said he’d make a few phone calls to a few kitchens and I was left with the bill. I sat there for an hour wondering about the possibilities while the waiters brushed breadcrumbs from the tables around me.

Occasionally, one of the chefs would stand in the doorway, puffing out blue smoke and getting a rare glimpse of sunshine. I wanted to be that chef, basking in those precious few moments.

I didn’t want to just write about it, and stand on the sidelines reviewing restaurants. I wanted to cook for a living. But at least this way I’d be able to do both.

And maybe I’d get inspired enough to start up my own food truck when I returned to the UK? Then I thought of the name. It was even better than the Shrimp Pimp Truck (motto: shrimpin’ ain’t easy, but it sho is fun!) And that was a name that wasn’t easily trumped.

The possibilities were endless, and for the first time in a long time I felt like I was truly on the right road.