There was a time in my mid-20s when I ended up working in a food truck at a music festival. It was cash in hand job and – I thought – likely to be a pretty cruisy gig. I imagined I’d watch a few bands, do some light serving, and happily be $200 richer at the end of the day.
This was not the case.
In reality I stood in a small, hot space for 10 hours and had carnies shout at me for putting my hands in my pockets. (In food truck land, the only reason people put their hands in their pockets is to steal $50 notes from the cash register).
This is but one chapter in my long, proud history of taking stupid jobs and being shocked that they suck.
But, friends, this means I have walked amongst the food truck folk. I know some of their secrets.
And because the food trucks are the same, whether they’re parked at music festivals, Eastern Creek, or Bathurst, I thought I would share my wisdom.
If you can find one, the best deal on the menu is a beef roll
According to the woman who showed me around the food truck, they make the lowest margins on the beef rolls. That’s why I was under strict instruction to put just one slab of meat per bun and garnish heavily with gravy.
The meat is real, it’s cooked over night and was probably the closest approximation of real food there.
My advice? Pay attention to how it’s served. In my truck, it was being tended to by a woman hunched over the meat pot. Watching the sweat pour off her brow directly onto the simmering meat below lives vividly in my memory.
Yes, the fairy floss sells, but usually to munted teenagers
You’ve seen it before. The buckets of fairy floss adorning the outside of a truck like garlands. Fun! Festive! Weirdly expensive at $15!
Who are the customers that want buckets of sugar air? Teenagers on pingers, apparently. They sold like hotcakes.
But at a car race, those are few and far between. So, instead they work as a siren’s call to children dragged to the races by their parents.
If your child decides they want one, take a page out of my parent’s book and tell your kid they’re just for decoration. It works a treat.
You can’t go wrong with fried
I have had my fair share of food truck meals over my time and I regret not a single one of them. The truth is, if you put a shoe in the deep frier, it would probably come out tasting okay. In fact, for all we know, that’s what dogwood dogs are made out of.
So sure, you could bring a salmon sushi roll you bought from the corner shop along to the track. Or a ham sandwich you made at home which will have a slimy sheen on it by midday. And yes, you’ll feel a little rush of moral superiority as your fellow race-goers slam down a paper cup of chips.
But is it worth it?
Let’s remember that deep frying food also kills off bacteria. And if there was a toilet block I don’t want to become intimately acquainted with, it’s the ones you’ll find at racetracks (particularly those on the top of Mount Panorama frequented by the one-slab-per-day campers).
You might not believe it, but the food trucks are held to strict food safety standards. During a busy patch, the chips barely left the hot oil before they were being shovelled down someone’s throat.
Put that way, they’re practically a health food option.
So if you’re not a corporate box wanker, take a little trip to the food trucks and sample their wares next time you’re at a track. You absolutely won’t be surprised. Nothing’s changed in a decade.
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