Pop-Down #1: Fredfest!
MINCE x SHPE x FredFest: Taco stand meets Eastside Music Festival
as told by Sophia Wang (with photos by Sangita Vasikaran)
The first Friday of October, MINCE partnered with East Campus, a dorm on campus, and the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) to serve delicious hispanic food to the masses at the annual eastside music festival, FredFest. This is your captain reporting (hi!! It’s Sophia, the head chef for this October 7th event) – bringing you all the details, documenting the process building up to, during, and after our team’s first pop down.
Part 1. How this all came to be
I spent the summer in Los Angeles which meant two things: (1) I was in the city with one of the worst public transportation infrastructures in America and (2) I was in the most vibrant taco capital of America – a colorful explosion of flavor and culture on every block. I would spend every Sunday morning at a farmer’s market a ten minute walk from my apartment munching on a world of taste. I could find everything from Mexican elote and agua fresca to Salvadoran pupusas and shrimp ceviche down a single block. I was obsessed with the surplus of nourishing food, as well as how mobile the service location and setup was.
Pupusa stand in Pasadena, CA (taken on a leisurely Sunday morning)
With a propane-fueled griddle no more than five feet wide, a massive amount of meat and toppings prepped ahead of service, and a tent to combat the unrelenting heat of SoCal, the chefs were ready to serve and run their business. The central takeaway of these Sunday reveries to the market was accessibility through cost, volume, and location. Food can be cheap and delicious (in fact, some of the best dishes I’ve had in my life have been street food). That builds community. Food can not only build morale, but it can impart an incredible sense of connection between seemingly disparate groups. There are few things that can do the work of a well-formed, fluffy and fragrant pupusa.
At its heart, MINCE is a supper club. Our two arms are pop ups (fine dining tasting menus) and pop downs (exactly the relaxed environment of a farmer’s market carne asada stand). We believe that conversation begins around the dinner table. And sometimes, that dinner table takes the form of a sidewalk – the one that you crouch on with your friends while devouring an Al Pastor taco during a late night out – instead of the more traditional four-legged wooden one. In July, Andrea, our co-business lead, immediately jumped on the idea of a taco stand pop down. After much conversation, many proposals and budgets drafted, and lots of new connections, Andrea was able to secure both a SHPE sponsorship for our event and a home for our pop down: the annual Eastside music festival, FredFest, held every fall where local bands and artists perform in an outdoor concert. SHPE was interested in sharing Latin culture with the greater MIT community, and they too believed in the power of food. East Campus was interested in securing food in volume for their festival, with a projected 300-400 person turnout. The only question that now remained was whether we were willing to take on this task. It was an incredibly exciting opportunity. East Campus historically rents food trucks or opens the grills for large events like FredFest. We would be taking on a large responsibility, but also have the opportunity to spread delicious Hispanic food and incite conversation on a larger scale.
The answer: Yes. Our driving MINCE philosophy is to learn by doing. Birth by fire. (Birth by fire has become somewhat of a joke within our team because of how often it’s said.)
This is the embodiment of MINCE.
Part 2. Menu Ideation
Our October pop down just happened to coincide with our first MINCE menu restructuring. Coming hot off our first pop up, Flung out of Space, on September 24th, we learned so much about productive and realistic timelines, both for the cooking and business team. We decided to shift radically from a four-week timeline between the initial ideation session to the event date to a two-week timeline. We factored in accountability and cost into the decision. Ultimately, this transition meant that we went from walking to sprinting. FredFest would be our first trial with this new structure.
During ideation and with the input of SHPE, we came to the following three “courses”:
Starter: Dorilocos (a popular Mexican snack that is a mixture of tortilla chips, hot sauce, and a vibrant variety of toppings such as cucumbers, jícama, tamarind candies, Japanese peanuts, and cueritos)
Main: Tacos de Birria (a slow-cooked taco made with beef, though traditionally also made with goat, soaked in consomé)
Drink: Agua de Jamaica (a refreshing hibiscus tea)
Angela, our design lead, took inspiration from the street food stands and carts found in cities across Mexico. She made a beautiful menu for our event.
Angela’s menu for FredFest. The design is colorful, warm, and fun :)
Part 3. Prep
Going with traditional items and with a huge volume of food to serve, we decided to cut out the R&D phase and instead focus our time on prep. Since we had fresh produce such as onions, cilantro, lime, etc. to purchase, our prep would need to be within three days of the event to extract the most out of our ingredients, as well as keep them fragrant and safe to consume.
The Tuesday before FredFest, the business team began sourcing our ingredients. A few quick stats about this prodigious grocery run:
100 lbs of meat purchased (70 lbs of chuck, 30 lbs of short rib)
200 Guajillo chilis
600 mini corn tortillas
10 L of hot sauce
> $2000 in produce
Cross referencing resources from Instacart to Starmarket to local hispanic grocery stores, Alex and Gustavo from our business team had a complete inventory to settle. They rented a Zip car at 5 pm and began a three hour journey across Boston, spanning Allston to Somerville, to source all the ingredients.
Prep was a wonderful game of sourcing. Who has an extra pot…we need 8? Who can go to the spice shop in Cambridge that sells dried hibiscus flowers – can they bargain for price since we’re buying 2.5 lbs…enough to kill a small child? Where can we find Japanese nuts? (Andrea is adamant on buying these nuts. She says we can’t do Dorilocos without them. So the game continues. She messages a few different hispanic chats for information. Someone tells us about a Brazilian store, a hidden gem in Boston, which sells bags of them.)
Two days later, Thursday at 4 pm, all of our ingredients are in the East Campus country kitchen (called Talbot). The cooking team has just arrived, and we’re ready to rock and roll thanks to the remarkable work of our business team. Hooray!
Our starter prep was the most straightforward of all the courses. Jacky and Kelly, the members of the cooking team in charge of the Dorilocos, diced over 30 cucumbers and carrots and 12 jícamas. Our drink prep, completed by Joanna (who also head chef-ed our first pop up!), reduced ten gallons of hibiscus syrup. The color was a dark purple, almost black in its depth. Combined with just a touch of sugar and ice, the Agua de Jamaica was the perfect refreshing drink to round out a bag of Dorilocos and a plate of Birria tacos.
Joanna reducing the hibiscus syrup. The reduction was almost black at the end of each batch. You could even see your face reflected in it!
Our true beast was the prep of our main. Michael, Feli, and Anika prepared this dish. We started by trimming the meat and dividing into pots to slow cook several batches simultaneously. The kitchen we were working in had a total of 12 burners. With Joanna on the first 4 burners reducing syrup, that meant the main could use the remaining 8 burners for 3.5 hour batches. With this much meat, we needed two rounds – a daunting total of 7 hours! Each pot was stuffed with aromatics (Andrea even called her mom to confirm the recipe. The conclusion? Cloves were needed. Joanna took the T to Central at around 9 pm to grab us two containers-worth of cloves). Thus began the patient process of making birria tacos. We took turns watching and stirring the pot. Some members would listen to music in the kitchen while others would PSET on the couches in Talbot (as all MIT students know, Wednesdays and Thursdays are crunch time for assignments). By 3 am, we had our first taste of an assembled taco. The fall-apart meat dripping with the juice of the consomé, fitted into a corn tortilla, topped with a squeeze of lime…perfection.
Part 4. Decor
First and foremost, everyone say: Thank you, Angela. Now that we have that out of the way, let me explain.
Angela is our MINCE design lead. Her vision for the “storefront” was to have the warm feel of a taco stand. Wafting smells of delicious food flooding the courtyard, bright commotion and conversation in the lines leading to the counter, the warmth of being fed by your peers, your family. We decided to take hole in the wall literally in our embodiment of this atmosphere. Using the kitchen of the first floor of the East Parallel (1E) of East Campus, we opened the window and removed the nets and bars. Through this window, and in its narrow alleyway, students would be able to order items off the menu. Since FredFest ran from 8 - 11 pm, lights were needed. After finding a ladder, Angela climbed to the balcony and strung various sets of white Christmas lights collected from the Student Center to illuminate our service window.
Angela climbing the ladders like a scene in a movie
The final touch of decor was the papel picado. Papel picado is a traditional Mexican decorative design made from colorful sheets of tissue paper. It is considered a Mexican folk art. Angela custom made MINCE papel picado in the same style. Sneaking into a makerspace at 10 pm the Monday before FredFest, she operated an industrial laser cutter to create the wonderful decor. We stacked mounds of construction paper, played with cut settings (varying speed, power, and frequency) to create the colorful ornation. Strung on ribbon across the balcony and trees leading to the window, the papel picado created a sense of festivity and home.
This is all to say that (1) Angela’s artistic vision and talent are among the best I’ve encountered during my time at MIT and (2) it takes a village. From initial ideation to execution, there are a thousand steps in between which involve laser cutters and ladders, frantic trips across campus for construction paper (Andrea has mastered longboarding thanks to our frequent trips) and IDs with makerspace access, et cetera, et cetera. We can’t do any of this alone. Our team is the magic of MINCE.
Part 5. FredFest
At FredFest, we were set to serve starting at 9 pm, which meant that call time for all members of cook team working the event as well as members of business team at the front of the house (i.e. working the window) was an hour and a half earlier, at 7:30 pm. Starting then, we began prepping the stations. The key to optimizing a location like the kitchen (no larger than 1.5 dorm singles) is organization and communication.
We had three broad countertop areas, three ovens, twelve stovetops, two freezers, six sinks, and one large table to serve 250 starters, mains, and drinks. Using tape, we began first by demarcating the large table at the center of the kitchen into three sections. This table would be used only for holding finished plates of tacos, canned mason jars of Agua de Jamaica, and completed bags of Dorilocos (though we decided to go with Takis instead of Doritos). That way, our business team working the window would have easy access to grab and serve our peers. One countertop (no larger than a standard desk) each was dedicated to the drinks and Takis station. The freezer would hold comically large amounts of ice which Joanna would use for the drinks. Jacky and Kelly would dress the Takis with Japanese peanuts, peach rings, and more on the fly.
Our largest countertop, stretching around twelve feet, was dedicated to the Main. Since we had three people working the main (Feli, Anika, and Michael), one person would blister the corn tortillas and keep them warm by wrapping them in a towel, another person would soak the tortillas in consomé and assemble the tacos with meat and mozzarella for a quick toast in the broiler, and a third person would finish the birria tacos with a ladle of our consomé followed by cilantro and onion toppings and a side of lime. Alternating every thirty minutes, each member of the main would have a chance to experience every element of the “line”.
Communication was absolutely imperative. With three active ovens where hot trays were coming in and out, our kitchen was a boisterous gallery of sound. During my time as a line cook in Pasadena, I learned that a quiet kitchen is far from a good kitchen. I was overjoyed to hear the cacophony of “behind” and “hot!”.
Two members of our business team – Gustavo and Alexis – and one member of our cooking team outside of the event, April, joined us in operating the front of the house. Again, meticulous organization was necessary. One member would take orders from the window while also communicating important information through the window (e.g. marking people’s hands to ensure everyone had a chance to eat at least once before coming for seconds, sharing allergen information, plugging our Instagram @mitmince). Another member would run the items (taking from our center table) to the window, letting the member at the front know how much time was needed if any item(s) wasn’t ready yet. A third member stood outside by the crates where people returned plates and mason jars, handing all returned serving vessels to the kitchen to be cleaned by our extra kitchen hands.
A quick note on why we decided to use reusable plates and cups instead of the much easier choice of plastic disposables. Andrea has been a strong proponent for sustainability and is an adamant, powerful advocate of MINCE being a zero waste team and organization. Although reusables are certainly more expensive, we realized that buying these materials would not only be an investment for our future pop downs, but they would also set a precedent for the future of MINCE and our lived values. Thank you Andrea for being the voice we needed to take action.
By 9 pm when we started service (technically, at 9:05 pm MIT time), there was already a line forming of 100 people. I looked out the window and there was a brief moment of panic. But with it, an undeniable feeling of exhilaration. We gathered our hands and shouted “MINCE!”. Thus began our birth by fire.
Part 6. Post FredFest
Following the last call for food at around 11:15 pm, we first went to the Courtyard where a dwindling crowd listened to the final set of FredFest. Hustling in the kitchen (which was swelteringly hot) for the last four hours, we could hear the echoes of the live music which played only thirty feet away from our window. At midnight, we saw and heard for the first time the talented artists perform.
Cleaning up was a humongous task. We had a few trays of leftover meat that we carted back to Talbot, as well as over one hundred plates and mason jars to wash. The cleanup was cheerful! Using our consomé and shredded beef, we sourced some additional ramen and garlic infused oil. Michael took charge of making a few bowls of birria ramen. Needless to say, it was delicious. Compliments to the chef!
Bowl of Birria Ramen, courtesy of Michael
After around four hours of cleaning (everything from reorienting the kitchen we had taken over to using the ladders to take down our lighting), we finally left East Campus for New House, where all of our kitchen equipment was stored. Carting sixty pounds of bowls, pans, and more across campus was no easy task. It entailed lots of breaks on the sidewalk. We ate leftover bags of Takis and Japanese peanuts on these breaks.
At New House, we ended the night with a friendly game of tortilla slapping. The rules go: two people compete by standing face to face with a mouth full of water. Each person slaps the other with a tortilla. The first person to break (e.g. spray the other with water) loses. That Saturday morning (it was nearing 4 am) was a fever dream.
Joanna (in shame) after losing a game of tortilla slapping with me (victor)
For MINCE, FredFest was this incredible sense of achievement along with an immense feeling of gratitude. Thank you so much to SHPE and East Campus for giving us the opportunity to share hispanic culture through food, as well as the opportunity to feed our peers for free. Thank you to the MINCE team for coming together and making this event happen. We are growing as a community, and it is events like these that demonstrate what we’re capable of and how far we can walk together.
Signing off with a heart brimming with gratitude,
Sophia J. Wang
