Old Milano Food Tour

Milan as it was not even 100 years ago

In light of Milan's EXPO 2015 focusing on 'feeding the planet: energy for life', Farming the City together with Food in the Streets has organized the OLD MILANO FOOD TOUR. First tours are during Milan Food Week 2014!

It may be hard to imagine your city without a single supermarket; however, several cities used to supply food to their inhabitants without having these modern megastores. In the OLD CITY FOOD TOUR we travel back in time to explore the history of the city from the perspective of food and food culture.

In 2015, Milan will host the universal exhibition: EXPO 2015 ‘Feeding the Planet. Energy for Life’. An event that will make the citizens and visitors aware of the important role of food, water and agriculture in their daily lives. Especially in a cities like Milan, where changes are never-ending, it is difficult to read the historic layers that have played an indispensable role in the development of its centre. The OLD MILANO FOOD TOUR shows the results of a historic research on the relation between urban development and food, its related culture and logistic systems in Milan.

For the Milan Food Week 2014, an enthusiastic guide will take you on a walk through the area around Piazza XXV Aprile. By viewing the city through the lens of food, we will also discover the political, economic and social changes that have been shaping one of the most beautiful areas of the city. 

What’s more interesting than visiting an Italian city by discovering its intrinsic relationship with food?

For the upcoming Milano Food Week we have in programma a two tours:
-        Saturday the 17th of May, 16-18h, starts at Piazza XXV Aprile, Milano
-        Wednesday the 21st of May, 19-21h, starts at Piazza XXV Aprile, Milano

More information and prices (from €15,- per person) can be found on the website of the Milano Food Week.

To book your tour of Milan and for more information write to inge@farmingthecity.net.

Food Trucks II

In last weeks’ blog I described the beginnings of street food, how that related with cultures and the development of food trucks as we’ve known them in the last century. This week I’ll continue the story and will give you some insights in upcoming developments.

The food trucks as developed by the American farmers turned out to be useful also in other situations. Horse drawn wagons were used as mobile canteens on building sites and at army bases. Immigrants from Mexico introduced the taco wagons that spread slowly over the country. By the way, it wasn’t unusual that immigrants were the ones selling food from mobile kitchens. Think of the famous Frankfurters (or hot dogs) that where introduced in New York by a German or snow cones (shaved ice) that originates in exotic countries but is available all over the world now.

Starting a food truck is relatively easy and cheap. There is no need to wait for clients to come as you can go to them and fixed costs are almost nihil. As people have less money to spend in expensive restaurants, star chefs moved their businesses from static restaurants to mobile food trucks, offering their clients the quality foods they were used to for prices that suit the nowadays economic situation.

But it is not only star chefs that abandoned fast food from the streets. At the moment it seems to be a world-wide trend to sell quality food from food trucks: on busy shopping streets, at festivals, in the middle of office areas. Everyone can now have access to healthy lunches, snacks or dinners without spending a huge  amount of money. Thanks to this movement, food trucks have become a good solution for people that live in so called food deserts (see an earlier blog on this subject). With their possibility to move easily they can prepare healthy dishes made with fresh food and make it directly available to the people in that area.

With the world getting fatter and still more food demanding, the fact that at least one part of the food resellers abandons the bad habits is no more than a mere drop in the ocean. Street food is, because of its prices and its prominent position in the public space, very accessible and can therefore reach those people that until now have not been very aware of the food revolution that is slowly taking place.

To conclude this blog: These days you do not have to be ashamed anymore eating something on the go. The period in which street food was fat and of low quality is ending. Actually, this summer food trucks seem to become the new restaurants where hipster and normal folk will meet and join some food together. And that is exactly what Food in the Streets likes.

See you there!

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