Street food is food obtainable from a streetside vendor, often from a makeshift or portable stall. While some street foods are regional, many are not, having spread beyond their region of origin. The food and green groceries sold in farmers' markets may also fall into this category, including the food exhibited and sold in gathering fairs, such as agricultural show and state fair. Most street food is both finger and fast food. Food and green groceries are available on the street for a fraction of the cost of a restaurant meal and a supermarket. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, 2.5 billion people eat street food every day.
Concerns of cleanliness and freshness often discourage people from eating street food. Lack of refrigeration is often construed as a lack of cleanliness or hygiene; on the other hand, street food often uses particularly fresh ingredients for this very reason.
Street food is intimately connected with take-out, junk food, snacks, and fast food; it is distinguished by its local flavor and by being purchased on the sidewalk, without entering any building. Both take-out and fast food are often sold from counters inside buildings. Increasingly the line is blurred, as restaurants such as McDonald's begin to offer window counters.
With the increasing pace of globalization and tourism, the safety of street food has become one of the major concerns of public health, and a focus for governments and scientists to raise public awarenesses. FSA hence provides comprehensive guidances of food safety for the vendors, traders and retailors of the street food sector in the United Kingdom.[6] Other effective ways of curbing the safety of street foods are through mystery shopping programs, through training and rewarding programs to market stallers, through regulatory governing and membership management programs, or through technical testing programs.
Taiwan's street food is well-known in Chinese culture, especially that from the area of Tainan. Influences include the (Min Nan) flavor brought by the emigrants during the Ming loyalist rule era and Japanese tastes in the Japanese colonial period, to 1949, when the Nationalist retreated to the island with people from every other province of the mainland. Bubble/Boba Milk Tea originated on the streets of Taiwan. Taiwanese street food includes fried stinky tofu, oyster pancakes, Zongzi (especially in Tainan), fried meatball, sugarcane juice (Taiwanese sugarcane was sweet famous with Cuba), soup of boiled Trionychidae, fish ball soup, Baozi and water fried Baozi, rice cakes made with pork blood, and rice and noodle dishes.
1 comment:
I find the part on which street vendors use very fresh ingredients interesting because I did not expect them to do that as it is very expensive to buy them and it may not be readily available especially in times when the weather restricts the collection of the raw materials. For example, in stormy weather, fishermen are unable to go out into the seas to catch fish.
I agree with the writer’s view that the distinction between street food an take-out food is blurred as McDonald’s do offer Drive – Thru services so that customers can still be in their vehicle throughout the entire purchasing process.
However, I do not feel that curbing the safety of street foods can be effective through programmes. This is because the majority of these vendors may not be educated well and hence they may not take the heed of the advice given to them by regulatory agencies. This is shown in Buzzing Cashier, a Television programme that aims to improve a food vendor’s quality of food. In one episode, a chef was giving tips on how to improve a food vendor’s quality of food. The food vendor was over 50 years old and was extremely reluctant to change the method of preparing the food. In the end, he gave in for the sake of the show. The series ended with the television crew going to each of the stalls to taste if the quality of their food did drop. When they came to this food vendor, they found that he went back to his own ways and he was not even remorseful and was even proud of it – in front of national television. From this example, we can see that the less educated ones may have a stubborn attitude or do not feel the importance of hygiene. For example, if a fly did land on his food, he probably will not care and still serve the food to the customer. This is because, if he threw it away, he will lose the chance to make the extra few bucks – or worse, make a loss. Within a span of a month, these people will go back to their old ways. Thus I feel that education through programmes and incentives may not be useful, especially in the long term.
I feel that this world is becoming more hygienic until it comes to a point now that people’s immunity is at a minimum. This could be cause of why people do fall sick so easily. With the breathing in of some airborne bugs, the person may just fall ill. I would like to draw an analogy with my grandparent. I have a grandmother nearly 90 years old and she climbs the stairs up to her flat on the 9 storey without panting. We deduced the reason for her level of fitness is the amount of hard work she did in the rice fields when she was half my age. Thus, she can still have a high level of fitness until now. Similarly, if one was to be exposed to some foreign particles naturally (by not being over concerned with hygiene), it could heighten our immunity system enough that we do not need to visit the doctor every now and then.
Singapore is a country which capitalizes on hygiene hence the number of street vendors is kept to a minimum. Even so, the Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority of Singapore will check on them regularly. However, from time to time, there are some instances of street vendors in Singapore. For example, in the Chinese New Year season, Chinatown will have some food vendors along some roads that are closed to vehicles. Pasar Malams or night markets in the heartlands are a more common sight. The level of hygiene in these areas are more acceptable as they are out in the open air. Compared to those food vendors in Bugis Street, food vendors in the former location are less congested.
Hygiene and freshness of street food, are ultimately, maintained by one’s level of consciousness. If they would like to serve the food in a particular way, I believe they will present it in their unique method no matter how disapproving it is, at least in the long term.
By Angus Ng (10S01)
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