Cheung Fun Fix

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Night on Cheung Chau

We didn’t know what to expect. Faced with the novelty of an open Saturday night, my girlfriend Laine and I decided to go somewhere random. Why not Cheung Chau? We’d always enjoyed visiting the island during the day, when its bicycles, beaches and palates of drying fish are a rebuke to the city’s uptight rush. It might be just as fun at night, we reasoned.

So we headed to the Central Ferry Piers where we stocked up on good beer — a Paulaner Dunkelweizen, a Brooklyn Lager and a Yebisu, for the record — and caught the 9:30pm “Ordinary Ferry” at Pier 5. In this case, “ordinary” means you’ll get exactly what you’d expect from a ferry: a real boat that sloshes back and forth in the water, with a spot at the rear where you can sit outdoors and feel the wind in your hair. It takes 15 minutes longer than the hermetically-sealed icebox “Fast Ferry,” but it also costs half as much and is twice as much fun.

We arrived at the island a bit after 10pm. The lights on the harbourfront promenade twinkled like somebody’s forgotten Christmas decorations. As we disembarked the ferry and left the pier, I noticed that most of seafood restaurants along the Praya were already winding down for the night, but Laine pointed out something far more exciting: street food.

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Free the Street Vendors

Hot dog vendor at Spadina and Queen. Photo by Kevin Steele

Toronto is finally getting the street food it deserves. After suffering under years of legislation that prohibited nearly everything but precooked sausages from being sold on the streets, vendors will now be able to serve food from hundreds of culinary traditions.

There’s just one problem: rather than embracing liberalized street food and all of its potential, City Hall is taking an overly bureaucratic approach. Just eight street vendors, out of a total of 19 that applied, will participate in a pilot project that will see Afghan chapli kebabs in Nathan Phillips Square, Ethiopian injera at Roundhouse Park and jerk chicken at Yonge and St. Clair, to name a few delicacies that have been specially chosen for their “nutritional value” and representation of Toronto’s ethnic makeup. Every aspect of the vendors’ operations will be tightly controlled: each one must use a custom-designed food cart (which range in price from $21,000 to $28,000) and they can’t deviate from their designated location.

City officials are concerned about food safety, naturally enough, but they’re also fussy about the nutritional value of what street vendors dish up, having gone so far as to pass a bylaw last December to ensure that street food is not only more “culturally diverse,” but “wholesome and nutritious.” It seems they want to discourage competition among vendors, too, since they’ve gone to great lengths to designate a handful of disparate locations at which street food can be sold under the new program.

It’s a remarkably heavy-handed approach, one at odds with the world’s great street food traditions, which are grounded in the ability to adapt quickly and flexibly to customer demand. Think of something like the now-famous Kogi taco truck in Los Angeles, which serves up Korean-inspired tacos from a roving truck whose location is announced only by Twitter and word-of-mouth. It’s innovative, delicious and exactly what people want — but it would be impossible in Toronto, where food vendors aren’t allowed to move around.

People less cynical than me can consider Toronto’s new approach a step towards street food freedom. But it’s an awfully small step. Even if this pilot project works out, what will dissuade city officials from micromanaging every future street food venture?

Taipei Street Food

Lime juice on sale in Shida

Deep-fried chicken in Ximending

Brochettes, squid and other treats in Shilin

Street Vendor Songs

Montreal did away with a big chunk of its cultural heritage when it started cracking down on street vendors in the 1960s. Food vendors were the first to go and, although City Hall has been easing its restrictions on street vending for a number of years, allowing people to sell art and crafts on Ste. Catherine Street and at the tam tams, it still refuses to allow anyone except mobile ice cream vendors to sell food on the street. This makes us one of the only major cities in the world with a near-total ban on street food.

Not only does this deprive us of delicious snacks, it eliminates a great source of streetlife. Today, on Coolopolis, Kristian Gravenor posted a bit about the calls of early twentieth century street vendors. He points to an article in the May 19th, 1929 edition of Le Petit Journal:

La corporation des marchands des quatres saisons, ou “colporteurs” comme on les nomme ici, est composée de braves gens qui gagnent honorablement leur vie en vendant de porte en porte, les primeurs, fruits ou légumes. On pouvait autrement classer dans cette catégorie les vendeurs de crême à la glace et les petits marchands de galettes et de blé-d’inde bouilli.

Le marchand de crême à la glace se tenait au coin des rues avec une petite voiture où était installé son bidon d’ice cream qui’il débitait à un sou le cocotier. Celui-là, il va sans dire, était particulièrement l’ami des enfants.

Un autre petit vendeur très populaire était le marchand de petites galettes et de petits pains chauds: “Galettes! Galettes! Madame!” criait-il, “pas trop de beurre dedans! … Cinq pour cinq sous! … Galettes! … Galettes! …”

Puis le marchand de blé-d’inde bouilli qui parcourait les rues avec son haridelle, en criant sans cesse, et en vers, s’il vous plait:

“Bon blé-d’inde bouilli!
Trois sous pour un épi! …”

Et qui ne se rappelle le vendeur de bluets, annoçant sa marchandise avec un trémolo dans la voix, tout comme notre marchand de bananes d’aujourd’hui: “Bluets!… Ah! les beaux bluets du Saguenay!…”

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Street Food Freedom!

While Montreal obstinately refuses to allow any sort of food vending on its streets — ostensibly for health and cleanliness reasons — Toronto has convinced the Ontario government to liberalize its street food rules so that vendors may sell more than just hot dogs. Soon, in addition to the several hundred sausage stands and chip trucks that dot the city’s landscape, Torontonians will be able to buy samosas, brochettes, crêpes, Taiwanese fish balls — and pretty much anything else you can imagine — on the street.

Considering the extent of Toronto’s cultural diversity — half of its population is foreign-born — you can pretty much bet that this move will introduce the city to a vast array of street vending traditions from around the world. Immigrant entrepreneurs will finally have a way to build a low-overhead business selling the food they know best; Toronto’s pedestrians, meanwhile, will have access to an international food fair on every block.

In fact, last Friday, a street food festival was held in front of Toronto’s City Hall to celebrate the new rules. According to the Toronto Star, one of the highlights was murtabak, an Indian Muslim wrap that is a popular street snack in Singapore and Malaysia.

Down the 401 in Montreal, however, in a city supposedly known for its laissez-faire attitude, cosmopolitanism and joie de vivre, politicians and bureaucrats claim that allowing street vendors to sell food would put the city’s hundreds of cheap restaurants out of business. Yet Toronto has no shortage of hole-in-the-wall falafel joints, take-out jerk chicken restaurants and inexpensive Korean cafés. Montreal certainly wasn’t hard-pressed for cheap eats back when street food was allowed in the 1950s and 60s.

Like most Montrealers, I’m a fan of the occasional shish taouk from Basha or soggy steamé from La Belle Province. But wouldn’t it taste so much better if you could buy it on the street?