Street food
These risks include food safety, sanitation, illegal use of public or private areas, social problems, and traffic congestion.
[9] Street food was widely consumed by poor urban residents of ancient Rome whose tenement houses did not have ovens or hearths.
[13] In Renaissance Turkey, many crossroads had vendors selling "fragrant bites of hot meat," including chicken and lamb that had been spit-roasted.
[14] In the 19th century, street food vendors in Transylvania sold gingerbread nuts, cream mixed with corn, and bacon and other meat fried on top of ceramic vessels with hot coals inside.
[19] Spanish colonization brought European food stocks like wheat, sugarcane and livestock to Peru, but most commoners continued to primarily eat their traditional diets.
[21] During the American Colonial period, "street vendors sold oysters, roasted corn ears, fruit, and sweets at low prices to all classes."
After previous restrictions had limited their operating hours, street food vendors were completely banned in New York City by 1707.
[23] Many women of African descent made their living selling street foods in America in the 18th and 19th centuries, with products ranging from fruit, cakes, and nuts in Savannah, to coffee, biscuits, pralines and other sweets in New Orleans.
The street food culture of much of Southeast Asia was established by coolie workers imported from China during the late 19th century.
Suvit Maesincee, Minister of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation, expects the Thai street food segment to grow by six to seven percent annually from 2020 forward.
[37] In Indonesia, especially Java, traveling food and drink vendors have a long history, as they were described in temple bas reliefs dated from the 9th century, as well as mentioned in 14th-century inscription as a line of work.
[38] Singapore has a large number of hawker centres which evolved from the traditional commerce of street food and was incorporated into UNESCO's List of Intangible Cultural Heritage on 16 December 2020.
"[41] Street food in Thailand offers a varied selection of ready-to-eat meals, snacks, fruits and drinks.
Bakso (meatball soup), satay (skewered chicken) and gado-gado (vegetable salad served in peanut sauce) are also popular.
The original marinade calls for ingredients such as Scotch bonnet peppers, allspice berries and sometimes wood from laurel trees.
[55] In Tanzania's Dar es Salaam region, street food vendors produce economic benefits beyond their families.
[19] In 2002, Coca-Cola reported that China, India, and Nigeria, where the company's expansion efforts included training and equipping mobile street vendors to sell its products, were some of their fastest-growing markets.
[56] The libertarian Reason magazine states that in US cities, food trucks are subject to regulations designed to prevent them from competing with brick and mortar restaurants.
[65][66][67] However, despite concerns about contamination at street food vendors, the incidence of such is low, with studies showing rates comparable to restaurants.
[68] In 2002, a sampling of 511 street foods in Ghana by the World Health Organization showed that most had microbial counts within the accepted limits,[69] and a different sampling of 15 street foods in Calcutta showed that they were "nutritionally well balanced", providing roughly 200 kcal (Cal) of energy per rupee of cost.
[72][73][74][75][76] In India, the government recognized the fundamental rights of the street food vendors and have imposed reasonable restrictions.
Due to difficulties in tracking cases and the lack of disease-reporting systems, follow-up studies proving actual connections between street food consumption and food-borne diseases are still very few.
The fact that social and geographical origins largely determine consumers’ physiological adaptation and reaction to foods—whether contaminated or not—is neglected in the literature.
