I’m guessing this goes probably goes back thousands of years with people selling bread or other preserved staples, but I’m thinking of quantities of food, both small and large being prepared ahead of time for sale later.
I know there are food stands around the world, but the vendors are usually cooking more product while they’re open. If you’re lucky, you’ll get your order fresh off the grill or out of the pot.
I’m also not thinking about prepared foods like you get in a 7-11 or supermarket. Or a deli where the sandwiches may be premade.
What I’m thinking of, is what we have in Hawaii. Okazu-ya, many of which prepare a set amount of food early in the morning and that set amount is sold, they close. Nothing is made to order or throughout the day. The later in the day you go, the fewer choices you have. If you’re lucky, you may get the last hot dog piece thrown in for free with your order.
This article says it’s unique to Hawaii, https://onolicioushawaii.com/okazuya/ but on a show, either Bizarre Foods or Dirty Jobs, in another country, the crew was visiting an okazuya like shop with all the food displayed in the window. One of the video crew bumped into the display and knocked over most the plate. The host laughingly agree to pay for the shop’s entire day’s sales loss.
I expect it goes back to antiquity. The Greeks and Romans had taverns, snack bars, and street vendors, and I suspect the Egyptians did too. At least some of them must have opened each day with a quantity of prepared food judged adequate to last until closing. Without refrigeration, it would have been hard to keep anything else fresh until it was needed.
This is what I was thinking also. Prepare the food in the early morning when it’s cooler and sell it throughout the day.
As far as refrigeration, having grown up with okazuyas, I never really thought it, but the majority of foods are kept and served at room temp. Only mac or potato salad is kept on ice. And yes, they pass health inspections.
I think meat and fish, which probably accounted for a huge portion of sales, would have to be precooked to last throughout the day. I suspect salads were largely missing from the menu, unless they were doused in the fermented fish sauce that was used back then. I’m sure flat bread, fruit (fresh and dried), and olive oil were big sellers too.
I know we have menus from Roman banquets, where exotic foods were basically eaten as soon as they were prepared, but I’d be interested in knowing what was sold at mom-and-pop establishments too. I wonder if anyone has ever done a study of this.
There are restaurants who will only have limited servings of certain dishes, because of the preparation time. So if you’re too late, or don’t reserve ahead of time, you won’t get that dish.
Most common here is pulled pork or ribs. Some of the restaurants which serve it make a certain amount at at time.
There have been many studies. Short answer: we’re not entirely sure.
Certainly they sold bread, cheese, wine, beans, fruits, vegetables, olives, nuts, meat, and fish, but exactly how they were prepared and sold is unknown.
Street-side enterprises providing food and drink offered a hallmark of Roman urbanism, and were described by any number of terms. Repeated endeavors to tease out distinctions among the names and to match them with evidence on the ground have largely met with frustration.
Painting of two dead ducks lying on a counter on the side of a well-preserved food stall in Pompeii:
Painting of bread stall in Pompeii:
(The loaves are scored for easily tearing off portions with your hands.)
Now that I think about it, they must have sold mass quantities of smoked, boiled, salted, and pickled snacks, along with sausages of, uh, dubious quality (I’ve read Spartacus ). Food preservation was hardly an unknown art. Cooking amounts of fresh food to order without refrigeration is, however, a tricky business. You’d certainly have to go shopping at market (or take delivery) very early in the morning to stock up for the day.
For the Middle Ages, quite a lot of fair food would have been pre-prepared things like pies. A pie isn’t something a food vendor typically makes to-order. I suspect the same for earlier times. Once you have bread, pies are only a step away. We have a Babylonian poultry pie recipe, so I’d guess at least that far back.
Why do you think this? Most salad greens keep for at least a day or more after being harvested, even unrefrigerated. Salads were, for instance, totally a thing in the Middle Ages.
Unless by “salad” you mean the mayonnaise-based dishes like potato- or pasta-salad. You definitely don’t want those sitting around more than an hour or so.
We buy our tamales on Saturday morning at the Mexican store. The lady makes a batch of about 250 once a week and is normally sold out by noon. Damn fresh tamales are sweet.
The literature on the death and survival of foodborne pathogens in commercial mayonnaise, dressing, and sauces was reviewed and statistically analyzed with emphasis on Salmonella, Escherichia coli O157:H7, and Listeria monocytogenes. The absence of reports of foodborne illness associated directly with the consumption of commercially prepared acidic dressings and sauces is evidence of their safety. Salmonella, E. coli O157:H7, E. coli, L. monocytogenes, Staphylococcus aureus, and Yersinia enterocolitica die when inoculated into mayonnaise and dressings.
I’ve let mayo-based salads sit around for hours while getting to picknicking or eating at the beach, etc., without any issues.
With homemade mayo, I don’t know the exact rules; I know that report should mean it’s fine, and I do see references to Alton Brown (a respected TV chef here in the US) saying to leave the homemade mayo out for 4-8 hours before refrigerating, but I’d probably share your hesitation.
You can buy toasted up grasshoppers at some of the Mexican grocery stores around here. Usually flavored with chile and lime. They’re pretty good as a bar snack. There’s also a place or two that does them in tacos. I could see them doing well in a fermented sauce.
Yes, that’s what I was thinking of. I’m sure they had things like pickled vegetables or salted cabbage (Sauerkraut), but not anything that easily spoils.
A recipe from the ancient Roman cookbook, Apicius, written by an unknown author during the late 4th or 5th century AD, details a dish called ‘Isicia Omentata’ made of minced meat, pepper, wine, pine nuts and a rich fish-based sauce (Garum), all formed into a patty.
The Roman delicacy, which bears more than a passing resemblance to the modern day burger, will be served up at Birdoswald Roman Fort on Hadrian’s Wall this weekend so that visitors can make up their own mind – and taste the ‘Roman Burger’ for the first time in 1,000 years.
It has long been known that the Romans brought ‘fast food joints’ – or thermopolia as they called them – to Britain. In large towns people wanted access to quick food during their lunch break and vendors selling chicken legs, lamb chops and shellfish became commonplace.
Scroll down for amusing pictures of a recreation cooked by a chap dressed as a roman centurion.
). Food preservation was hardly an unknown art. Cooking amounts of fresh food to order without refrigeration is, however, a tricky business. You’d certainly have to go shopping at market (or take delivery) very early in the morning to stock up for the day.