Karen Brucoli Anesi

Most of us do not have jobs that we’d choose to do if they paid nothing. But, I’m one of the lucky. For decades I’ve written about things that interest me, and I’ve actually made a few bucks doing what I’d probably do anyway: researching my passions.

Food writing is more than what meets the eye – or maybe I should say the mouth. Horticulture, nutrition, chemistry, microbiology, art, design, psychology and consumer trends and attitudes have at least a corner of the big food stage.

It was the science of eating that made me a food writer. It’s why I gravitate toward feature stories that remind me why everyone with a mouth needs to embrace chemistry and botany. Food will taste better and be more appreciated when one understands what it takes to get it from the seed packet to the plate.

Science and business. The economics of food plays a big part in shaping consumer trends and attitudes.

I had my eyes opened last week to yet another business model that gives diners more options. Here comes the food truck.

Until recently, I had associated food trucks with state fairs, football games and street carnivals. A year ago, I interviewed a young Canadian transplant to Durango who lamented what it would take to open a bakery. Instead, she bought a food truck and equipped it to offer home-baked croissants wherever and whenever consumers wanted them.

It was a bakery without walls, tables and chairs. There was no bell on the front door, steam clouding up the windows or stacked display cases of eye candy.

Now Durango has an outdoor food truck corral on North Main, where this bakery truck will be parked six months a year.

If things progress as forecasted by the entrepreneur who proposed the food truck corral to the city, then we could be looking at a dining cultural change comparable to what emerged in the center hub of shopping malls 40 years ago. Only this food court has no roof.

Good idea?

Maybe. Maybe not.

Lots of questions came to mind when I interviewed folks about Durango’s readiness for a food truck corral. People say they’re tolerant, but even the most liberal squirm with concerns about fairness. Or maybe they are squirming about change. Or maybe they have concern for the residents living closest to the food corral.

Here’s a question for you:

The hot dog vendor who pushes a cart each day in front of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art pays a licensing fee for that location. How much do you think he pays for that privilege?

Ten thousand? A hundred thousand?

Try half a million dollars.

He sells his hot dogs for $3.50. You do the math.

When it comes to the business of food, there always are economic cracks and crevices and interesting corners to examine.