Fast food

Fast food is a way of eating based on mass-produced items that are prepared and served very quickly, usually in specialised outlets and in packaging for take-away. It grew out of urban life, wage work and industrial production, and it is now a global phenomenon, especially strong in the United States and the United Kingdom, and present in many other countries.

History

Street vendors existed long before the concept had a name. In ancient Rome, the insulae, multi-storey apartment blocks, meant that much of the urban population depended on food sellers for many meals. The Forum served as a marketplace where people could buy baked goods and cured meats. In the mornings, bread soaked in wine was eaten as a quick snack, while cooked vegetables and stews were eaten later in the popina, a simple eating house. In twelfth-century China, people ate fried dough, soups and stuffed buns, foods that still exist as everyday snacks. In Baghdad, households supplemented home cooking with processed legumes, bought starches and ready-to-eat meats.

In the Middle Ages, large towns such as London and Paris had many vendors selling pies, pasties, flans, waffles, wafers, pancakes and cooked meats. They catered above all to people who could not cook their own food, including many families who lacked housing with a kitchen, as well as travellers such as pilgrims heading to a holy site.

In Britain, coastal towns sold local shellfish and fish cooked near the quay. The growth of trawler fishing in the mid-nineteenth century helped give rise to fish and chips, and tradition places the origin of the fish and chip shop in Oldham in the 1860s. As a cheap meal served in a wrapper, it became a staple of the Victorian working classes. With the Industrial Revolution the trade expanded quickly: by 1910 there were more than 25,000 shops across the UK, and in the 1920s more than 35,000. Harry Ramsden's opened its first shop in Guiseley in 1928, and in 1952 it served 10,000 portions in a single day, a feat that earned it a place in the Guinness Book of Records.

In the United States, after the First World War, the spread of the car brought drive-in restaurants. White Castle, founded in Wichita, Kansas, in 1921 by Billy Ingram and Walter Anderson, is generally credited with opening the first hamburger chain, selling hamburgers for five cents each. A&W franchised its root beer syrup in 1921, and Howard Johnson's began franchising restaurants in the mid-1930s, standardising menus, signs and advertising. In the 1940s, car service spread, with carhops famously on roller skates bringing food to the vehicle.

The concept also spread across Europe and the wider world. Automats, with glass windows and coin slots, opened in New York in 1912, and similar systems already existed in Berlin and in some American cities such as Philadelphia. After the Second World War, rising consumer spending, women entering the workforce and the habit of eating out, which had once been a luxury and became a necessity, made takeaway food part of everyday life. In 2006 the global fast-food market grew by 4.8 percent and reached 80.3 billion transactions. McDonald's opened in Moscow in 1990, and chains such as KFC, Pizza Hut, Subway and Burger King now operate in dozens of countries.

In the late 1990s, criticism grew over the lack of information, and over the high levels of fat, sugar and calories in many products, and the term junk food became common. The slow food movement, founded in 1984, positioned itself against the habits that fast food brought into daily life. The documentary Super Size Me (2004), in which Morgan Spurlock ate only McDonald's food for a month, increased public pressure. In March 2006, McDonald's announced that it would add nutritional information to the packaging of all its products.

Culture

What defines fast food is not only the speed of preparation but also a particular way of serving. Many items can be eaten without cutlery, such as pizzas, hamburgers, fried chicken, tacos, sandwiches, chips and onion rings, and this allows eating in the restaurant, collecting at the counter, eating on the street or home delivery. In most outlets there are no waiters or table service. Customers queue to order and pay, receive their food immediately or shortly after, and eat it seated inside or somewhere else. To keep things moving, many places ask diners to leave their rubbish in bins and return trays to a designated spot. Points of sale range from stalls and kiosks without seating to quick-service restaurants, and franchised chains receive standardised foodstuffs from central locations.

Industrial fast food depends on processed ingredients that keep flavour, texture and freshness consistent. Many dishes are prepared in central facilities and then reheated, cooked quickly or assembled on site, which guarantees uniformity and reduces labour costs. This standardisation coexists with strong local traditions. In Britain, fish and chips, served wrapped in paper, is part of neighbourhood life, and it has been joined by foods adopted from elsewhere, such as pizza, doner kebab and curry. In the Netherlands, friet is served with sauces such as fritessaus or peanut sauce, alongside deep-fried snacks like the frikandel and the kroket. In Portugal, specialised restaurants serve piri-piri grilled chicken, francesinha and bifanas. In Poland, pasztecik szczeciński, a deep-fried yeast dough with a filling, is a typical dish of Szczecin. In the Middle East, falafel and flatbread are everywhere, and in India vada pav, panipuri and dahi vada are very popular. In Japan, bentō is the traditional version of takeaway food, and sushi has become popular in the West.

Street selling remains important in many cultures. In the Philippines, turo-turo stalls let customers point at the dishes on display, and in French-speaking West Africa, brochettes of grilled meat have been sold at roadsides for generations. Today, mobile apps have widened the reach of many outlets, and petrol stations with shops also sell sandwiches and hot food to travellers.

Fast food continues to generate debate. Frequent consumption has been linked to higher risks of obesity, cardiovascular disease and other conditions, and some American local governments have restricted new outlets. Chains have responded with more healthy options and less packaging waste. Working conditions in the sector have also been criticised, as has its effect on traditional eating habits. Even so, its presence in daily life remains very wide.

Trivia