Grease Trucks

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Grease Trucks at Rutgers University

The Grease Trucks are a group of food truck vendors located on the College Avenue campus of Rutgers University at New Brunswick, New Jersey. They are known for serving "Fat Sandwiches", a sub roll containing an ensemble of ingredients such as steak, cheese, chicken fingers, french fries, mozzarella sticks, jalapeño poppers, and more.

In August of 2004, Maxim Magazine named the "Fat Darrell," a sandwich invented by a student named Darrell and commonly served by the grease trucks at Rutgers University, the top sandwich in the nation.^[1] The Grease Trucks have become an integral part of student culture at Rutgers, serving as a meeting and hangout spot. The Grease Trucks were named the number one post game activity in the country by Sports Illustrated On Campus in 2005.

[edit] History

A parody of what was the official Rutgers logo until the Rutgers Visual Identity System changed it at the beginning of 2007

The grease trucks were once parked along College Avenue, most clustered near Scott Hall but some were as far north as Brower Commons. Students and visitors alike could obtain a quick, hot, inexpensive meal during events and between classes. Since the trucks also sold cold beverages and ice cream pops requiring refrigeration, almost all of the trucks either idled or ran gasoline generators for power. In the early 1990s, in an effort to reduce pollution, noise & congestion along College Avenue, grease trucks were prohibited from parking along the thoroughfare. Subsequently, Rutgers provided a corner of the faculty parking lot (Lot 8) at College Avenue and Hamilton Street for 4-5 grease trucks to park with electrical hookups. At the same time, the vendors were put under contract with the University through the Parking and Transportation Dept. The contract provided the trucks with space and at the same time insured that health provisions set by the city were followed. The trucks would rotate within the lot, so that no one vendor would receive a competitive advantage based on location within the lot.

[edit] Grease Trucks cuisine

The history of the Grease Trucks Cuisine began long before the trucks themselves. It started in 1979, when a student at Rutgers served a sandwich known as the "Fat Cat" which consisted of two cheeseburgers, french fries, lettuce, tomato and onions. This sandwich would remain the #1 selling sandwich at Rutgers University until 1997 when a student named Darrell W. Butler created the "Fat Darrell," which consisted of chicken fingers, mozzarella sticks, french fries, and marinara sauce.Un^[2]

The creation of the Fat Darrell was seemingly accidental. Butler says in his own words: "Like the typical college student, I was pretty much broke. I had been craving chicken fingers, mozzarella sticks and french fries all week long but I knew that I didn't have enough money to buy all three. I talked the guy behind the counter into putting them all onto a piece of bread for me. I guess it sounded like a good idea because the next 10 or so people all asked for the same thing."^[2]

This boosted the notoriety of the Fat Sandwich to a national level. Since the creation of the Fat Darrell, fifteen to twenty other Fat Sandwiches have been formed. The popularity of such sandwiches led to the formation of the "RU Hungry" food trucks run by Abdul Eid, the man who assembles the sandwiches, and serves these and other foods till 2 in the morning. Since then Fat Sandwiches remain the most popular food on campus and have served over 100,000 people.^[3]

[edit] Naming controversy

The sandwiches: "Fat Dyke", "Fat Phillipino", [sic] and "Fat Bitch" were deemed offensive by Rutgers and in 2005 Abdul Eid and the other vendors agreed to change the names of the sandwiches to maintain their licenses to sell food at Rutgers.^[4] Nonetheless, many customers still ask for sandwiches by their original, controversial names, and many restaurants in New Brunswick sell fat sandwiches with whatever names they like, as the restaurants are not under the auspices of Rutgers University.

[edit] List of Fat Sandwiches

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Mobile catering
• Street food
• Food truck

[edit] External links

• Daily Targum on Fat Darrell
• Fox News coverage
• Maps and aerial photos Coordinates: 40.499454° -74.448284°
  • Street map from Google Maps or Yahoo! Maps
  • Topographic map from TopoZone
  • Aerial image or topographic map from TerraServer-USA
  • Satellite image from Google Maps or Microsoft Virtual Earth