Sunday, March 26th, 2023 will mark the inaugural Bay City Food Truck Festival, focusing on the growing global food truck culture. The event is taking place at the Bay City Fairgrounds.
Food trucks have a long, long history around the world. In the United Kingdom, the term started entering common use among costermongers operating in 18th Century London. In the 19th century United States, the term was popularised in reference to the carts immigrants used to sell their traditional foods around the streets of cities such as New York, and which became the forebears of the modern hotdog / pretzel, etc., street vendors seen today.
In Asia meanwhile, the “food truck” culture spans centuries of mobile food provisioning. In Japan, references to what might be regarded as “food trucks” – carts used by people from the provinces to prepare and sell their local foods and delicacies in town and cities goes back as far as the late 16th / early 17th century.
The more modern food truck has its roots in the internal combustion engine powered vans can trucks which in turn grew from the carts and stalls of street vendor. The US saw something of an explosion of food truck in the 1960s, and other countries all have their own various flavours of them – kebab wagons, crepe trucks, the mobile hot dog, fish’n’chips, doughnut, hot snack wagons, and so on. In the US in particular, they can be a common sight, pitching up outside businesses to sell meals and snacks directly to the employees there.
By the 2000s, the food truck culture was evolving again, in some ways going back to its roots and an others, upselling itself, the focus shifting towards ethnics / cultural foods, many with an emphasis on gourmet / quality standards of presentation and taste – think Roy Choi in Los Angeles and Richard Johnson in the UK.
This modern culture of food truck is the focus of the Bay City festival, featuring a display of trucks from across Second Life, decorated and presented by the people who operate / decorate them in-world. Some two dozen food trucks are presented, offering foods ranging from the simple – sausages, burgers, etc., through to the full street-side dining experience seated at tables, and are displayed around the Fairgrounds green. All Second Life residents are invited to hop along and tour the trucks, join in with the fun and activities – all you need to do in bring along an empty stomach and enjoy!
Music for the event will be provided by DJ GoSpeed of KONA Stream, starting at 12:00 noon SLT and running until 14:00 SLT. Visitors will also be able to join in with fun activities such as horse shoe tossing, testing their strength, faces-in-hole photographs, and more.
About Bay City
Bay City is a mainland community, developed by Linden Lab and home to the Bay City Alliance. The Bay City Alliance was founded in 2008 to promote the Bay City regions of Second Life™ and provide a venue for Bay City Residents and other interested parties to socialize and network. It is now the largest Bay city group, and home to most Residents of Bay City.
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