The Maiden Voyage
There is a finite number of moblie food vendor permits in New York City, and among those there is a set number of permits for hot dog vendors. Those permits are all taken, in fact. So how is this young Turk of a sausage cart that I'm working for manage to get into the game?
By not selling hot dogs, that's how. All along I've been refering to this project that I'm working with as "the hot dog cart." Well, legally they can't sell frankfurters because those permits are all taken; they instead have a permit for gourmet foods, and our gourmet food is sausage. Yes, yes, I know--a frankfurter is a sausage. But we legally can't sell franks.
The government has special standatds outlining what makes a frank a frank. As long as the sausages we sell don'y meet those standards, we're in the clear. Here's some text from the code of Federal Regulations:
"Frankfurters (a.k.a., hot dogs, wieners, or bologna) are cooked and/or smoked sausages according to the Federal standards of identity. Federal standards of identity describe the requirements for processors to follow in formulating and marketing meat, poultry, and egg products produced in the United States for sale in this country and in foreign commerce. The standard also requires that they be comminuted (reduced to minute particles), semisolid products made from one or more kinds of raw skeletal muscle from livestock (like beef or pork) and may contain poultry meat. Smoking and curing ingredients contribute to flavor, color, and preservation of the product. They are link-shaped and come in all sizes -- short, long, thin, and chubby." (See the full page here.)
The sausages served at our cart (or, more accurately, the sausages that will be served at our cart) are not emulsified (or, to use the language abouve, comminuted); they are somewhat coarse and moderately spiced, but quite flavorful nonetheless. The all-beef ones in particular are very beefy and robust. A company upstate makes them exclusively for the cart. The pork sausages taste a bit more trad, not quite as burly. They are in natural casings and about the diameter of a regular frank, which leads me to belive they are using lamb casings.
But enough about sausage specs. What about the cart? Friday was its maiden voyage. The thing was brand spanking new and stored in a parking garage--a temporary measure. Three of us met at the parking garage to push the cart about twenty blocks to the restaurant that one of the sausage partners owns. There, on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, we washed off the cart, filled its water tanks, put in the propane tank, and stocked the bins with ice and sausage supplies.
Pushing the cart--500 pounds of cart--is not too tough. The back wheels are fixed and the front wheels pivot, so the back pusher is the engine and the front puller is the steerer. The biggest challenge is navigating around pedestrians, who do not always yield to the 500-pound cart. Also, the sidewalks down there get narrow, so there are times when an inch makes the difference between skinning a poor urban tree and barely skinning a porr malnourished urban tree.
The hubby is getting restless, I must shre the computer...more on sausage cart debut in the next post.
By not selling hot dogs, that's how. All along I've been refering to this project that I'm working with as "the hot dog cart." Well, legally they can't sell frankfurters because those permits are all taken; they instead have a permit for gourmet foods, and our gourmet food is sausage. Yes, yes, I know--a frankfurter is a sausage. But we legally can't sell franks.
The government has special standatds outlining what makes a frank a frank. As long as the sausages we sell don'y meet those standards, we're in the clear. Here's some text from the code of Federal Regulations:
"Frankfurters (a.k.a., hot dogs, wieners, or bologna) are cooked and/or smoked sausages according to the Federal standards of identity. Federal standards of identity describe the requirements for processors to follow in formulating and marketing meat, poultry, and egg products produced in the United States for sale in this country and in foreign commerce. The standard also requires that they be comminuted (reduced to minute particles), semisolid products made from one or more kinds of raw skeletal muscle from livestock (like beef or pork) and may contain poultry meat. Smoking and curing ingredients contribute to flavor, color, and preservation of the product. They are link-shaped and come in all sizes -- short, long, thin, and chubby." (See the full page here.)
The sausages served at our cart (or, more accurately, the sausages that will be served at our cart) are not emulsified (or, to use the language abouve, comminuted); they are somewhat coarse and moderately spiced, but quite flavorful nonetheless. The all-beef ones in particular are very beefy and robust. A company upstate makes them exclusively for the cart. The pork sausages taste a bit more trad, not quite as burly. They are in natural casings and about the diameter of a regular frank, which leads me to belive they are using lamb casings.
But enough about sausage specs. What about the cart? Friday was its maiden voyage. The thing was brand spanking new and stored in a parking garage--a temporary measure. Three of us met at the parking garage to push the cart about twenty blocks to the restaurant that one of the sausage partners owns. There, on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, we washed off the cart, filled its water tanks, put in the propane tank, and stocked the bins with ice and sausage supplies.
Pushing the cart--500 pounds of cart--is not too tough. The back wheels are fixed and the front wheels pivot, so the back pusher is the engine and the front puller is the steerer. The biggest challenge is navigating around pedestrians, who do not always yield to the 500-pound cart. Also, the sidewalks down there get narrow, so there are times when an inch makes the difference between skinning a poor urban tree and barely skinning a porr malnourished urban tree.
The hubby is getting restless, I must shre the computer...more on sausage cart debut in the next post.
posted by Lefty at 7:58 AM
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