The Taco Truck

Icons of Mexican cultural identity and America's melting pot ideal, taco trucks have transformed cityscapes from coast to coast. The taco truck radiates Mexican culture within non-Mexican spaces with a presence--sometimes desired, sometimes resented--that turns a public street corner into a bustling business. Drawing on interviews with taco truck workers and his own skills as a geographer, Robert Lemon illuminates new truths about foodways, community, and the unexpected places where ethnicity, class, and culture meet. Lemon focuses on the Bay Area, Sacramento, and Columbus, Ohio, to show how the arrival of taco trucks challenge preconceived ideas of urban planning even as cities use them to reinvent whole neighborhoods. As Lemon charts the relationships between food practices and city spaces, he uncovers the many ways residents and politicians alike contest, celebrate, and influence not only where your favorite truck parks, but what's on the menu.

Dragons Love Tacos meets Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site in this irresistibly kid-friendly read-aloud about a little taco truck that is having trouble finding a place to park. Little Taco Truck serves up tasty treats to the hungry workers on Union Street . . . until one day, Miss Falafel shows up with her baked pita bread and crunchy chickpea fritters--and parks in his space. The next day, Miss Falafel is there again, and this time she's brought Gumbo Jumbo and Annie Arepas with her. Little Taco Truck's headlights dim. What if people like Gumbo Jumbo's spicy stew and Annie Arepas's warm cornbread cakes more than they like his tacos? When more trucks arrive the following day and there's no space left for Little Taco Truck, he swishes his wipers to hide his tears and heads home. At last, with some ingenuity and help from new friends, Little Taco Truck wins back his coveted parking spot. And guess what? There is room enough for everyone! Packed with flavor and savory smells, this irresistible read-aloud about friendship and determination is perfect for even the youngest truck and taco fans.

"Talk about your meals on wheels!" A convoy of comic food trucks is heading your way, serving up a mouthful of good eats with a side of humor and verse. They've got everything from french fries to falafel. You can sample sushi. Build a burger. Eat an empanada! There's a food truck flavor to satisfy every appetite in this comically illustrated picture book with rhyming text. A fun and informative homage to tasty treats and transportation. Additional fun facts on food history and nutrition are also peppered throughout the book.

Welcome to food truck central! Sit down and fasten your S-EAT belt for dinner in this lift-the-flap story about food, trucks, and cooking from around the world!

A heartwarming and charming debut novel about family, friends, and finding your voice all wrapped up in a warm tortilla. Estefania "Stef" Soto is itching to shake off the onion-and-cilantro embrace of Tia Perla, her family's taco truck. She wants nothing more than for Papi to get a normal job and for Tia Perla to be a distant memory. Then maybe everyone at school will stop seeing her as the Taco Queen. But when her family's livelihood is threatened, and it looks like her wish will finally come true, Stef surprises everyone (including herself) by becoming the truck's unlikely champion. In this fun and heartfelt novel, Stef will discover what matters most and ultimately embrace an identity that even includes old Tia Perla.

It’s the best of street food: bold, delicious, surprising, over-the-top goodness to eat on the run. And the best part is now you can make it at home. Obsessively researched by food authority John T. Edge, The Truck Food Cookbook delivers 150 recipes from America’s best restaurants on wheels, from L.A. and New York to the truck food scenes in Portland, Austin, Minneapolis, and more. John T. Edge shares the recipes, special tips, and techniques. And what a menu-board: Tamarind-Glazed Fried Chicken Drummettes. Kalbi Beef Sliders. Porchetta. The lily-gilding Grilled Cheese Cheeseburger. A whole chapter’s worth of tacos—Mexican, Korean, Chinese fusion. Plus sweets, from Sweet Potato Cupcakes to an easy-to-make Cheater Soft-Serve Ice Cream. Hundreds of full-color photographs capture the lively street food gestalt and its hip and funky aesthetic, making this both an insider’s cookbook and a document of the hottest trend in American food.

The definitive word on tacos from native Angeleno Wes Avila, who draws on his Mexican heritage as well as his time in the kitchens of some of the world's best restaurants to create taco perfection. In a town overrun with taco trucks, Wes Avila's Guerrilla Tacos has managed to win almost every accolade there is, from being crowned Best Taco Truck by LA Weekly to being called one of the best things to eat in Los Angeles by legendary food critic Jonathan Gold. Avila's approach stands out in a crowded field because it's unique: the 50 base recipes in this book are grounded in authenticity but never tied down to tradition. Wes uses ingredients like kurobata sausage and sea urchin, but his bestselling taco is made from the humble sweet potato. From basic building blocks to how to balance flavor and texture, with comic-inspired illustrations and stories throughout, Guerrilla Tacos is the final word on tacos from the streets of L.A.

A memoir and cookbook from the creator of the gourmet Korean-Mexican taco truck Kogi, the star of Netflix's "The Chef Show," and the culinary advisor to Jon Favreau's film "Chef." “Roy Choi sits at the crossroads of just about every important issue involving food in the twenty-first century. As he goes, many will follow.”—Anthony Bourdain From the maverick chef the New Yorker called “The David Chang of L.A.” comes a cookbook that’s as inventive, creative, and border-crossing as the city to which it pays homage: Los Angeles. Los Angeles: A patchwork megalopolis defined by its unlikely cultural collisions; the city that raised and shaped Roy Choi, the boundary-breaking chef who decided to leave behind fine dining to feed the city he loved—and, with the creation of the Korean taco, reinvented street food along the way. Abounding with both the food and the stories that gave rise to Choi's inspired cooking, L.A. Son takes us through the neighborhoods and streets most tourists never see, from the hidden casinos where gamblers slurp fragrant bowls of pho to Downtown's Jewelry District, where a ten-year-old Choi wolfed down Jewish deli classics between diamond deliveries; from the kitchen of his parents' Korean restaurant and his mother's pungent kimchi to the boulevards of East L.A. and the best taquerias in the country, to, at last, the curbside view from one of his emblematic Kogi taco trucks, where people from all walks of life line up for a revolutionary meal. Filled with over 85 inspired recipes that meld the overlapping traditions and flavors of L.A.—including Korean fried chicken, tempura potato pancakes, homemade chorizo, and Kimchi and Pork Belly Stuffed Pupusas—L.A. Son embodies the sense of invention, resourcefulness, and hybrid attitude of the city from which it takes its name, as it tells the transporting, unlikely story of how a Korean American kid went from lowriding in the streets of L.A. to becoming an acclaimed chef.