Street Food Finally Gets More Interesting
First things first: I love Toronto's street meat. Along with smog and endless festivals, the waft of BBQ meat snaking down the streets is one of those signs that summer has arrived in this city. Having said that, there's far too much diversity in Toronto for our sidewalks not to run thick with the smells of samosas, soups, and all other manner of delicious ersatz meals.
Apparently, Provincial Health Minister George Smitherman is due to announce today that the strict health laws that forbid anything other than pre-cooked sausages and hot dogs from being served on the streets will finally be relaxed. Although it may take a while for vendors to actually begin rolling out the new eats, it's good to know a bit of variety is finally coming our way. The drunken stumble to bed after a long night just got a whole lot more delicious.
Image by gbalogh of the blogTO Flickr Pool.
Comments (7)
How does this tie into Multi-Story Complex's great Street Food Vending Project? Did the city look at the results of their research before taking up this project?
Multi-Story Complex was at OpenCities a few weeks ago, and what I loved most about their presentation was that not only did they want to increase the diversity of food available through street vendors, but they wanted to use this diversity to reclaim sidewalks as a place for public congregation.
Sameer: I don't think there's a direct link since it's a provincial decision, not a municipal one. The city's been pushing for it for a while, but the province had the final say.
I agree with you, though: vendor carts that become part of the public realm beyond just the sale of food would be an amazing addition to our street furniture.
Finally!!
It was incredibly irresponsible that our Ministry of Health would only allow us to buy processed, nitrate-sodium-fat-filled suasages and hot dogs on the streets.
What kind of an insane Ministry of Health do we have that promotes eating this kind of horrible junk and forbids by law the sale of healthy food??? The Ministry of Health is supposed to encourage health not sickness!
I'm surprised there hasn't been massive protests against this earlier and that it has taken Health Minister George Smitherman this long to implement changes. The Minister of Health should have been raked over the coals a long time ago for this.
Now we just need to follow the example of Oregon and force the Minister of Health to remove junk food from Ontario's school system.
I hope there will be vendors selling fresh fruits and vegetables (not prepared salads) from their carts like there are every few blocks in New York.
I bought my fruits and veggies from these vendors on a daily basis when I lived in New York. It's a wonderful addition to the city and a very healthy one.
It's time Toronto implements this idea in our city.
In Seoul you can get just about everything on the streets at night. Mandu, stuffed eel, steamed(?) nuts, squid, tiny pizzas, hamburgers, ice cream waffles, and on and on.
David, that's an excellent idea. I too frequent the fresh fruit carts when I'm in NYC for work, and was always wondering when we'd start seeing those here in Toronto.
I think toronto's asian community should take advantage of this to set up a year round night market similar to the ones found in many places in asia with foods such as oyster omlettes, bo bia, spring rolls, dumplings, and other stuff :)
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