To start the history of street food, let’s first look at what the dictionaries and other key knowledge sources give as their definitions today.

Cambridge Dictionary

‘food that is cooked and sold in public places, usually outdoors, to be eaten immediately’

Collins Dictionary

‘Street food is food that is cooked and sold in the street or in other public places and is intended to be eaten immediately.’

Dictionary.com

‘ready-to-eat food sold on the street or in a park, open-air market, or other outdoor public place.’

‘a particular food sold in an outdoor public place.’

Wikipedia

‘Street food refers to food or drinks sold by a hawker or vendor on a street or at other public places, such as markets, fairs, and parks.’

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation

‘ready-to-eat foods and beverages prepared and/or sold by vendors and hawkers, especially in streets and other similar public places.’

Fascinatingly, the only ‘street food’ element that they all agree upon is that it must be sold in a public space. There’s no alignment on anything else, other than it obviously being food and/or drink, and that money is exchanged in return for the food and drink.

Tons of questions thus spring to mind:

• Does street food have to actually be prepared and cooked in the public space that it’s being sold in?
• How much of the dish is it acceptable to be prepared in a private place and then sold in a public one?
• Is a privately owned and managed, fully enclosed food market actually a public space?
• What if the food isn’t eaten on the go but the vendor sells it in neat packages for you to take home and eat later?
• Is street food defined by price/affordability? If a luxury oyster company sold their expensive, uncooked, chucked oysters on a street stall with a squeeze of lemon, is that by definition ‘street food’ because it’s simply being sold in a public place?
• What does street food mean to people in both the developed and developing world? Is street food different for people who rely on it as a major food source, as compared with those that eat it as a life style choice?
• If a vendor microwaves his shop-bought sausages, and then sells in a public space, is that street food?

The list of questions goes on…

Let’s now look back in time to when and why street food began…

In relation to the first evidence of food being actually sold in a public space, the earliest evidence is circa 1200 BC, when Egyptians were able to buy flatbread called “ta” from stalls in the village streets. These early Egyptian unleavened bread bakers could very well be the founding fathers and mothers of street food. Perhaps, it’s thus no coincidence that arepas, matzo, chapati, roti, naan, crepe, and tortilla unleavened breads are all major players in the street food of today.

If we move forward in time (but with our feet still firmly planted in ancient history) to circa 500 BC when large cities started to develop in ancient Greece. During this period, Athens developed its ‘Agora’ (a public meeting space/market square) where, amongst other activities, farmers set up stalls to sell their koulouri, barley, wheat, meat, seafood, fruits, vegetables, cheeses, eggs, honey, and wine. These farmers had their produce to sell, but no distribution channels like the shops, and internet of today to sell their produce from – the Agora was their sole sales channel. Accounts indicate that these farmers at the Agora didn’t really sell ready-to-eat products, other than hot lentil soup which was commonly eaten. This lack of much actual food consumption at the agora was most likely due to the Athenians, at that time, considering the consumption of food in public as not very becoming.

Another leap forward in time sees Alexander the Great found Alexandria in 331BC. Alexandria was one of the first truly big and cosmopolitan cities – for the first time the cuisines of Greece and nearby countries were now intertwining. As the city grew, there was an ever-increasing requirement to feed the population (hungry citizens have an increased tendency to revolt!). It is around this period that there’s documentation of small fish being fried and sold on the streets of Alexandria.

The Roman Empire took control of Alexandria in 30BC, this would have seen a huge adoption of the Alexandria food culture spread into the Roman Empire. With the Roman Empire growing at a rate of knots and thus needing to keep its civilians well fed and contented so they wouldn’t revolt, feeding them became a huge priority.

The average Roman citizen would not have any means to cook at their own dwelling, enabling them to buy cooked food on the streets was the only way to efficiently feed such a large and growing population. Thermopolia were built on mass across the empire to provide hot food and refreshments to the burgeoning population. Thermopolia translates literally into ‘hot-shops’, enabling people to eat freshly cooked food whenever and wherever they wished, as they had no means to cook food at their own dwellings. Exceptionally well-preserved remains of thermopolia were found buried under the ash at Pompeii.

Thermopolia were technological equivalent of today’s smart phones, or the new crest of Ai – they were an exceptionally creative solution to a problem that needed solving: how to feed lots of people across a large city at an affordable price. Street food is to continue this trend of innovation of food-related creations born from necessity.

To keep the thermopolia well stocked so as to keep the growing populace’s stomachs’ well fed and thus keeping them contented and less likely to revolt, led the Roman Emperors to deploy amazingly strategic food supply logistics. This was exemplified by Rome, a city of a million plus people, the biggest city population to exist up until industrial revolution London many millennia later. The way the Emperors kept Rome well fed was to turn the recently conquered Egypt into the empire’s granary, to achieve this they had to find ingenious and cost-effective ways to maintain a constant supply of wheat from Egypt to Rome.  One of the most innovative ways to achieve this regular supply of wheat was by employing private shipowners to transport the crop between Alexandria and Rome, under the supervision of the state – this is a great example of an ancient partnership between the private and public sector!

The Emperors, by controlling the supply of wheat in this way, effectively made themselves a monopoly of bread distribution. Emperor Augustus used this monopolistic position to boost his popularity by supplying free wheat every month to thousands of citizens. Egypt’s role as the bread basin to the Roman Empire was later transferred to the empire’s African provinces, with grain then being shipped from Carthage in Tunisia to Rome’s Ostia port, taking just three days to complete this journey. Wine, oil, and meat also became staples on this Carthage – Ostia route.

The Roman Emperors’ determination to make food readily available and thus interwoven within the fabric of Roman society, made it now genuinely possible to grab something hot and tasty on the move – true ‘street food’ was now possible. Romans were now snacking on salted peas whilst watching gladiators fighting it out in the Colosseum, as well as eating a sausage and/or fried fish after they’d been to the bath house. These foods, and much more, were sold by the now vast network of thermopolia and popinae (wine bars) that were strategically located near to areas of public entertainment, as well as the largest residential areas.

Let’s now leap forward in time from Rome to the next mega city, London, during the industrial revolution…

Again, street food in London at this time flourished due to the requirement to feed lots of people quickly and cheaply. The industrial revolution had arrived, causing a gigantic population increase in London. The influx from the English countryside into cities was so enormous that in 1801 only a fifth of the English population lived in a city, by 1901, only a fifth lived in the countryside. In 1801, the population stood at just under 865,000 people, by 1871 it was over 3 million.

Many of these new city immigrants had moved away from the land where they’d previously grown their own food, and into tenement blocks with no gardens to grow anything, and that often didn’t even have kitchens for them to cook in. Just like the Romans, they needed to be fed, and they rapidly began to depend on the street vendors and Hawkers for their meals. It’s estimated that at the industrial revolution population increase peak, there were over 6,000 vendors working in the city, serving up pea soup, eels, whelks, fried fish, and pies…lots of pies! It was around this time that pies became what we know and love today, just with a slight difference. The pie’s crust at this time wasn’t really on the menu – it was an ingenious invention designed to house the filling, enable it to be easily carried around, and to also protect it from the coal dust and oil that was prevalent during many workers’ day to day industrial jobs. The dirty crust casing was designed to be discarded before eating.

With London’s workers living mainly on street food, this food source became strongly associated with the working class, with the upper classes associating eating in the street/in public as being a by-product of being poor, and a habit that they, as the upper classes, wouldn’t ever consider indulging in. It was this prejudice against street food that saw its very rapid demise after the Victorian era ended around 1900, and only re-emerging some 90 years later in the UK in the 1990’s, thanks to local farmers’ markets.

Across the pond in New York, street food was following a remarkably similar path, remaining inextricably linked to a number of key factors: population increase, diaspora, financial instability, and social change.

The U.S Civil war during the 1st half of the 1860s had put a halt on U.S immigration and thus any population increase. However, post the Civil War, mass immigration continued at pace, with 20 million immigrants landing on U.S shores between 1880 and 1920. The arrival of these 20 million immigrants, mainly from south and eastern Europe, heralded the beginning of a huge street food increase. Requiring a cheap and readily available food source, these European immigrants were not only the primary consumers of said street food, but were also invariably the primary peddlers of the food through the use of their pushcarts. Just after this wave of immigration peaked, the Great Depression hit the US – causing America’s most prolonged period of austerity on record. The requirement for a cheap supply of readily available food had never been more required, and street food rose further in prominence through the Great Depression up to just before its end.

The Immigration Act of 1924 greatly reduced the number of immigrants, thus reducing demand for street food, as well as reducing the number of available vendors to service/work within the industry. Also, cars were now becoming the focus for street design and street vending got in the way of that as vendors on the roads got in the way of these new cars. However, it was the arrival of mayor Firoello LaGuardia in the 1930’s that was the final death-nail of street food in New York. LaGuardia, convinced that street vendors were a major menace against urban modernisation on all levels, promised to move all pushcart markets indoors to enclosed market buildings. By using the Federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) funds, LaGuardia slowly but surely took almost all street food vendors off the streets and put them into controlled and managed indoor markets. The first to open, in 1936, was the Park Avenue Market in East Harlem. By the time LaGuardia left office in 1945, only a small handful of vendors operating at street level still existed. This move by mayor LaGuardia is almost a mirror image the Singaporean government’s recent policy of taking Singapore street vendors off the streets and putting them into purpose-built Hawker centres.

Fast forward to 1970’s America, and there’s a huge influx of Mexican immigrants into California. The so called ‘Roach Coaches’ were an entrepreneurial idea of a few early street food vendors to travel up the coast to sell cheap Mexican food to the workers. The first modern incarnation of the food truck was born – having most likely been inspired by the very first Chuck Wagons from the 1860s. The original Chuck Wagons were ingeniously hollowed out US army wagons that were then retro fitted as mobile food stations to feed the cattle drivers on their herding trips between Texas and New Mexico. The ‘Roach Coaches’ were so successful that the concept soon spread to Los Angeles and then New York.

Let’s now fast forward to the 2008 Global Financial Meltdown…

An unprecedented blow to just about every market imaginable, the restaurant industry was especially hard hit – no more so than in New York. Many restaurants in the city closed, leaving super talented chefs unemployed. With no income, and borrowing money now being especially hard due to the economic climate, these genius chefs did what they did best – they started cooking. But not cooking in lavish restaurants with unaffordable overheads …but rather on the streets, and also from the now burgeoning concept of food trucks. They applied their creative culinary genius, and started to come up with innovative new street food fusion dishes such as Korean Tacos and Mexican sliders, essentially re-writing the urban menu, and fusing American style food with the immigrant cuisines, and vice-versa. Having only recently run their own kitchens in a world of the new iPhone, Facebook, Twitter, et al, they were social media and IT savvy too, soon realising that the rapidly emerging social media could be used as a very effective marketing tool for their new mobile food businesses. Street food again was on the rise and rapidly becoming a mainstay, and super trendy across New York and other major U.S cities.

Back across the pond again now to the UK, London in particular…

Street food’s re-emergence post Victorian times was happening at a much slower rate than in the U.S. The lingering Victorian association of street food with a lack of hygiene, only being for the poor, and that it was rude to eat in public was only really first challenged in the late noughties when Farmers’ Markets arrived on the scene. By 2000 there were over 200 farmers’ markets across the UK  – this rapid growth saw it very quickly become socially acceptable (by the middle classes) to buy food in a public space and chomp away at it whilst they perused the array of handmade local crafts on display. Despite the new acceptability of eating in public in farmers’ markets, outside of these markets, on the streets of London, there were comparatively very few street food vendors in relation to New York. It was until almost a decade later, in 2009, that it’s believed the true London street food revival happened.

When back in the U.K, Papoutsis started his business selling a food he knew well and understood, burgers. His initial trailer was very basic, and was simply called, MeatWAGON. Having nailed his burger centric menu, he also began to utilize social media to tell people where his trailer was, and updating people on changes to his menu, as well as any other time-sensitive information that social media now made so easy to distribute to customers. The MeatWAGON’s social media following rapidly increased, this in turn led to well-known food critics sampling his food, dubbing his burgers as the best in London. Twitter, etc were in their relative infancy at this point, this was one of the earliest usages of the power of the # tag in the UK street food arena. Papoutsis, along with Scott Collins, then went on to establish the MEAT Liquor brand which today operates across 11 UK sites.

Today, street food across the world, boasts some very sizeable numbers:

Global Street Food Market:

2.5 billion people eat street food every day around the world.

Street Food Industry Revenue                                          $25bn

(based upon assumption of 2.5% of Global Fast Food)

Fast Food Industry Revenue                                            $980.65bn

Food Truck Market                                                            $3.94bn

United States Street Food Market:

Total street food industry revenue                               $2.8bn

Total fast food industry revenue                                   $331.41bn

Street Food accounts for 0.84% of the total fast food industry revenue

Average year on year growth of 11.7% between 2017 & 2022

United Kingdom Street Food Market:

Total street food industry revenue                               £1.2bn

Total fast food industry revenue                                   £21.37bn

Street Food accounts for 5.6% of the total UK fast food industry revenue

Total street food industry revenue predicted to reach £1.6bn by 2028

People under 35 years of age are the largest consumer group at 47.6%

Key Trends and Predictions:

Increase in food truck (mobile) market driven by increased remote working which is seeing more people not travelling into city centres to work as much as they used to. Vendors will increasingly expand the ‘mobile’ side of their business to be nearer where people live and increasingly work more from.

More ‘established’ brands joining the street food truck bandwagon to join the growing list that already includes the likes of Dunkin’ Donuts, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, McDonald’s, and Taco Bell.

Imminent global recession and inflationary pressure on food and energy prices all leading to mass closures of restaurants, with many of them flip reversing into street food businesses, carbon copy of what happened directly after the 2008 financial crisis.

The rise of ‘Gourmet street food’. This has found its way into street food parlance recently as a way to categorise the ‘top end’ street food, and is predicted to increase at CAGR of 5.90% between 2023 and 2028. Gourmet street food businesses are, however, often ones that are now setting up restaurants (not public spaces), cooking the food in their restaurant kitchens and serving to customers in their seated private restaurants. This is not street food according to any metric and its foreseen this could become a bone of contention and really hot up the debate about what is and what isn’t street food.

The increasing demand from consumers for dietary information at the POS.

Increase in street food consultants who can help connect the dots between vendors, consumers, food producers, marketers, content creators, industry suppliers, and investors.

Increase in certain cuisine types:

• Jamaican – the increasing rise of jerk chicken
• Latino, especially Venezuelan
• Italian
• West African (biggest area of growth predicted here)
• Caucuses
• Japanese

Online ordering and delivery growth. Gives vendors the ability to double down on the economies of scale offered by online ordering solutions that increases their sales without them being saddled with the fixed cost overheads that takeaways and restaurants suffer from. It’s becoming more and more common to see street food vendors having as many Deliveroo/ et al couriers taking away food, than as customers who’ve actually physically visited the stand.

Food Festivals and Carnivals

Event organisers are increasingly seeing street food vendors as a big attraction to their events. It’s a win-win, as the street food vendors pay the organisers to be there, the event is more attractive with top street food vendors in attendance, leading to higher ticket sales/visitor numbers, and, of course, the customers get to eat very well at an affordable price at the event.

Increase in Vegan and Meat-Plant blend options

Meatless proteins are now mainstream in the food industry and are beginning to become so in the street food world too. Such is the interest in vegan street food that dedicated vegan street food tours are now starting up.

Provenance

Being able to tell customers exactly where their produce comes from is becoming increasingly important, as well as it being a powerful sales tool for the vendor – consumers are more likely to eat from a stall that can tell them the exact farm that the food they are about to eat comes from.

Sustainability

Using products that are as ethical and sustainable as possible. This applies not only to the food & drink, but also the energy used to cook with, as well as the cooking equipment, food truck, etc.

In conclusion:

To understand the full story of street food, it really depends on what part of the world you live in.

Street food started, and has developed throughout history, as a way of feeding growing populations during times of growth, poverty, and change. Of the estimated 2.5 billion people who presently eat street food every day, a majority of these people still live in the developing countries. In these developing countries, many people still do not have ovens or refrigeration and thus rely on street food as a major food source. Due to their literal dependence on street food, to them the important factor is not whether they prefer burritos to tacos, but far more about the cost, regular availability, and the levels of micronutrients and proteins in the food. Unfortunately, many studies show that the street food in developing countries is frequently high in calories but low in nutrient diversity which is a major contributor to global malnourishment, which is a particular problem in sub-Saharan Africa. This is a problem that needs addressing, and a fantastic cause that successful street food businesses in the developed world could contribute more towards helping.

If you live in the developed world, street food is, generally speaking, a life-style choice, with your choice of street food being mainly based upon your food preferences. When people have the choice regarding street food, it’s becoming more and more important for vendors to be offering truly authentic recipes (ideally with the chef being from the country of the cuisine being cooked), sustainable and traceable food cooked fresh to order at street level, cooked with theatrical flair, sold at a price that’s less than a comparable restaurant, but at a quality that’s at least as good as that restaurant.

Thank you for taking the time to read my article, I hope that you’ve derived value from it.

If you work in or around the street food industry, I have a street food focussed business called Contentico that I’m confident could assist you if you’re looking for help in any way with industry knowledge, data, or consultancy services across pretty much the whole street food market landscape. I greatly look forward to talking with you.

If you’re still hungry for more street food stuff (!)…below is a list of the world’s most popular street food dishes in alphabetical order:

Amritsari kulcha                                      INDIA                  

Anticucho                                                 PERU    

Arancini al ragu                                       ITALY    

Argentinian Empanadas                         ARGENTINA                      

Arrosticini                                                 ITALY    

Arrosticini                                                 ITALY

Bakso                                                         INDONESIA

Bánh mì thit                                              VIETNAM

Bánh mì                                                     VIETNAM            

Bánh xèo (Crispy Pancake)                     VIETNAM                                          

Bao                                                            CHINA

Batagor                                                     INDONESIA

Bola de Berlim                                         PORTUGAL         

Bubur ayam                                             INDONESIA        

Burek sa sirom                                        SERBIA 

Burek                                                        BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

Burrito                                                      MEXICO

Cannoli                                                     ITALY

Carne Asada Burrito                               US                        

Carne Asada Fries                                   US

Carne asada tacos                                  MEXICO                             

Carnitas                                                   MEXICO              

Chả giò         (Fried Spring Rolls)          VIETNAM                           

Chaat                                                        INDIA

Chalupa                                                    MEXICO              

Chana masala                                          INDIA   

Char kway teow                                      SINGAPORE        

Cheeseburger                                          US         

Cheesesteak                                             US         

Chiacchiere                                              ITALY    

Chimichanga                                            US         

Chipa                                                         PARAGUAY

Chole bhature                                          INDIA   

Choripán                                                   ARGENTINA       

Churros                                                     SPAIN

Cochinita pibil                                          MEXICO              

Cochinita pibil                                          MEXICO

Cơm tấm (cracked rice)                           VIETNAM

Covrigi                                                       ROMANIA           

Coxinha                                                     BRAZIL

Crêpes                                                       FRANCE

Currywurst                                               GERMANY          

Dondurma                                                TURKEY

Döner kebab                                            TURKEY

Dosa                                                          INDIA

Doughnut                                                  US         

Empanadas                                               SPAIN   

Espetada                                                   PORTUGAL         

Espetos                                                     SPAIN

Esquites                                                    MEXICO

Fajitas                                                        US

Falafel                                                       ISRAEL

Fish and chips                                          ENGLAND           

Garantita                                                  ALGERIA

Garrapiñada                                             URUGUAY          

Gaufre                                                       BELGIUM

Gelato al pistachio                                  ITALY                   

Gelato cioccolato                                    ITALY                   

GORDITA                                                   MEXICO

Gözleme                                                    TURKEY

Gringas                                                      MEXICO

Guotie                                                       CHINA

Gyros                                                         GREECE

Gyūdon                                                      JAPAN

Hainanese chicken rice                          SINGAPORE                       

Hoagie                                                       US

Hotteok                                                     SOUTH KOREA                 

Jeon                                                            SOUTH KOREA

Jianbing                                                     CHINA  

Karaage                                                     JAPAN  

Khachapuri                                               GEORGIA            

Khao phat                                                 THAILAND

Köfte                                                          TURKEY

Kokoreç                                                     TURKEY

Kokoretsi                                                  GREECE

Korokke                                      `              JAPAN  

Kunāfah                                                     EGYPT  

Kunāfah                                                     EGYPT

Lahmacun                                                TURKEY

Liège Waffle                                             BELGIUM            

Lumpiang                                                  PHILLIPINES                      

Martabak                                                   YEMEN 

Meat Pie                                                    AUSTRALIA & NZ             

Miang kham                                              THAILAND          

Miso ramen                                               JAPAN  

Mission Burrito                                        US         

Mititei                                                        ROMANIA

Mollete                                                      MEXICO              

Nachos                                                      MEXICO

Nasi uduk                                                  INDONESIA

Negima yakitori                                       JAPAN  

Nikuman                                                   JAPAN  

Okoshi                                                       JAPAN

Oyakodon                                                 JAPAN  

Pa thong ko                                              THAILAND

Pad Thai                                                    THAILAND          

Panzerotti                                                 ITALY

Paratha                                                     INDIA

Pastel de nata                                         PORTUGAL         

Pastel mandi’o                                        PARAGUAY

Pempek                                                    INDONESIA

Peppered Shrimps                                 JAMAICA

Phở bò (Beef Pho)                                  VIETNAM

Pho                                                          VIETNAM

Piadina Romagnola                                ITALY                   

Pierogi                                                     POLAND

Pisang goreng                                         INDONESIA        

Pizza al taglio                                          ITALY    

Pljeskavica                                               SERBIA   

Poffertjes                                                 NETHERLANDS  

Porchetta                                                 ITALY    

Poutine                                                     CANADA

Rabas                                                        SPAIN

Rendang                                                    INDONESIA        

Roti canai                                                 MALAYSIA

Roti prata                                                 SINGAPORE

Roti                                                           INDIA

Samosa                                                     INDIA

Sandwich de lomo                                  ARGENTINA                     

Satay                                                          INDONESIA

Scallion Pancake                                     CHINA

Serabi                                                        INDONESIA

Sfogliatella                                               ITALY    

Shaobing                                                   CHINA  

Shawarma                                                LEBANON           

Shengjian mantou                                  CHINA

Siomay                                                      INDONESIA

Som tam                                                   THAILAND          

Souvlaki                                                     GREECE

Spanakopita                                             GREECE

Stamppot                                                  NETHERLANDS  

Supplì                                                         ITALY

Tacos al carbon                                       MEXICO              

Tacos al pastor                                        MEXICO              

Tacos Arabes                                            MEXICO              

Tacos de camarones                              MEXICO

Tacos de pescado                                   MEXICO                             

Tacos gobernador                                   MEXICO

Tacos                                                         MEXICO

Taiwanese Popcorn Chicken                 TAIWAN                                           

Taiwanese Scallion Pancake                TAIWAN

Talo                                                            SPAIN

Tamal                                                        MEXICO

Taquitos                                                    MEXICO              

Tempeh mendoan                                  INDONESIA

Tikka                                                          INDIA

Tikka                                                          INDIA

Tortas                                                        MEXICO

Tostada                                                     MEXICO

Tsukune yakitori                                     JAPAN                 

Tteokbokki                                               SOUTH KOREA  

Vada pav                                                   INDIA   

Yakisoba                                                   JAPAN  

Yakitori                                                      JAPAN

Zapiekanka                                               POLAND