Institutionalization of Street Food in the Modern Urban Space: Conformations, Tensions and Conflicts

Gizane Ribeiro de Santana^1, and Lígia Amparo-Santos²

¹Health Sciences Center, Federal University of the Reconcavo of Bahia, Brazil

²Nutrition School, Federal University of Bahia, Brazil

Cite this paper:
Gizane Ribeiro de Santana and Lígia Amparo-Santos. Institutionalization of Street Food in the Modern Urban Space: Conformations, Tensions and Conflicts. Journal of Food and Nutrition Research. 2019; 7(6):465-475. doi: 10.12691/jfnr-7-6-9

Abstract

Street food constitutes itself in deep-rooted remote practices of walking vending. From the analysis undertaken from topics of the theories of Giddens, Beck and Bauman about western modernity, the present article proposes to reflect on the process of institutionalization of street food, from the historical nuances that marked its advent and how food starts to conform as “street” food in this modern and global context. It is evident that throughout the Modern Era, this food transposed the barrier of the trivial urban commerce, reaffirming itself as a mean of personal and collective subsistence, part of the history of various peoples, of local identity, and of structural transformations, especially in the economic and cultural sense. Qualified as a “street food", in pejorative denotation, it marks the close relationship with the changes occurring in the terrain of urban commensality, conceived with the advent of the institutionalization of eating and the emergence of the salaried class. In contemporary times this complex phenomenon, which is a producer and reproducer of modernity, adds elements of the traditional renaissance and, at the same time, forms a transcultural exponent and a path in the conflictive public space of commensality.

Keywords:
street food modern urbanization informal trade urban commensality street vendors

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

References:

[1]	Sennett, R., O declínio do homem público. As tiranias da intimidade [The fall of public man], translated by Lygia Araújo, Record, Rio de Janeiro, 2014.
[2]	Giddens, A., As consequências da modernidade [The consequences of modernity], translated by Raul Fiker. Unesp Foundation, São Paulo, 1991.
[3]	Calaresu, M., D.V.D. Heuvel., Introduction: Food hawkers from representation to reality. In: M. Calaresu and D.V.D. Heuvel (eds), Food hawkers: Selling in the streets from Antiquity to the presente (The history of retailing and consumption), Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, London and New York, 2016.
[4]	Holleran. C., Representations of food hawkers in ancient Rome. In: Calaresu, M., D.V.D. Heuvel (eds), Food hawkers: Selling in the streets from Antiquity to the presente (The history of retailing and consumption). Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, London and New York, 2016.
[5]	Krohn, D. L., Quodlibets and fricassées food and musical settings of street cries in early modern London. In: Calaresu, M., D.V.D. Heuvel (eds), Food hawkers: Selling in the streets from Antiquity to the presente (The history of retailing and consumption), Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, London and New York, 2016.
[6]	Giddens, A., A contemporary critique of historical materialism. Vol. 1 Power, property and state. Berkeley and Los Angels: University of California Press, 1981.
[7]	Elias, N., O processo civilizador vol 1. Uma história dos costumes [The civilizing process: The history of manners], translated by Ruy Jungman, Jorge Zahar, Rio de Janeiro, 1989.
[8]	Carneiro, H., Comida e Sociedade. Uma história da alimentação [Food and society: a history of feeding], Elsevier, Rio de Janeiro, 2003.
[9]	Heuvel, D.V.D., Selling in the shadows: peddlers and hawkers in early modern europe. In: Calaresu, M., D.V.D. Heuvel (eds), Food hawkers: Selling in the streets from Antiquity to the presente (The history of retailing and consumption). Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, London and New York, 2016.
[10]	Pitte, J.P., Nascimento dos restaurantes [The rise of the restaurant]. In: Flandrin, J-L. and M. Montanari (eds), Food: A culinary history, Estação Liberdade, São Paulo, 1998.
[11]	Lousada, M.A., Sobre a alimentação popular urbana no início do século XIX: tabernas e casas de pasto lisboetas [On popular urban feeding in the early nineteenth century: taverns and Lisbon houses]. In: Serrão, J.V. (eds), Economic development and social change. Portugal in the last two centuries. Tribute to Miriam Halpern Pereira. ICS, Lisboa, 2009.
[12]	Eloy, A.L.S., R.R.V. Reis, A comida de rua como ferramenta na preservação dos alimentos tradicionais [Street food as a tool for the preservation of traditional foods], Anais I Seminar on food and traditional cultural events. GROUPS. Federal University of Sergipe: São Cristóvão, May 21-23, 2012.
[13]	Ferreira-Filho, A.H., Desafricanizar as ruas: elites letradas, mulheres pobres e cultura popular em Salvador (1890-1937) [Deafricanization the streets: literate elites, poor women and Popular culture in Salvador (1890-1937)], Revista Afro-Asia, 21-22, 1998-1999, 1999, 239-256.
[14]	Bauman, Z., Modernidade líquida [Liquid modernity], translated by Plínio Dentzien, Zahar, Rio de Janeiro, 2001.
[15]	Bauman, Z. (2013). A cultura no mundo líquido moderno [Culture in a liquid modern world], translated by Carlos Alberto Medeiros, Zahar, Rio de Janeiro, 2013.
[16]	Calloni, M., Street food on themove: A socio-philosophical approach. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, 93, 2013, 3406-3413.
[17]	Da Matta, R., O que faz o brasil, Brasil? [What Makes Bazil What is Is?], Rocco, Rio de Janeiro, 1986.
[18]	Bauman, Z., Modernidade e ambivalência [Modernity and ambivalence], translated by Marcus Penchel, Zahar, Rio de Janeiro, 1999.
[19]	Smith, N., The New urban frontier. Genrtification and the revanchist city. Routledge, London and New York, 1996
[20]	De Certeau, M., A invenção do cotidiano 1. Artes de fazer [The practice of everyday life], translated by Ephraim Ferreira Alves. Vozes, Petropólis, 2014.
[21]	Winarno, F.G., Proceedings: Regional Workshop on street foods in Asia, Jogjakarta, Indonesia. November 3-7, Bogor: Institut Pertanian, Food Technology Developement Center, 1986.
[22]	Beck, U., A. Giddens, S. Lash., Modernização reflexiva. Política, tradição e estética na ordem social moderna [Reflective modernization. Politics, tradition and aesthetics in the modern social order], Unesp, São Paulo, 2012.
[23]	Magalhães, L. M., A higiene dos sentidos e os sentidos da higiene para as baianas de acarajé da cidade de Salvador, Bahia [Hygiene of the senses and the senses of hygiene for the baianas of acarajé of the city of Salvador, Bahia]. Master’s thesis. School of Nutrition, Federal University of Bahia, Salvador, 2012.
[24]	Hayden, T.B., The taste of precarity: legitimacy, and legaliy among Mexican street food vendors. In: R.C.V. Cardoso, M. Companion and S.R. Marras (eds), Street food. Culture, Economy, healthy and Governance. Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, London and New York, 2014.
[25]	Anjaria, J.S., Street Hawkers and Public Space in Mumbai. Economic and Political Weekly. 27, 2006, 2140-2146.
[26]	Etzold, B., Towards fair street food governance in Dakha: moving from exploitation and eviction to social recognition and support. In: R.C.V. Cardoso, M. Companion and S.R. Marras (eds), Street food. Culture, Economy, healthy and Governance. Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, London and New York, 2014.
[27]	Jacques, P.B., Elogio aos errantes [Praise the wanderers], Edufba, Salvador, 2016.
[28]	Bauman, Z., Ensaios sobre o conceito de cultura [Essays on the concept of culture], translated by Carlos Alberto Medeiros, Jorge Zahar, Rio de Janeiro, 2012.
[29]	De Certeau, M., L. Giard, P. Mayol., A invenção do cotidiano 2. Morar, Cozinhar [The practice of everyday life, vol 2: Living and cooking], translated by Ephraim Ferreira Alves e Lucia Endlich Orth. Vozes, Petropólis, 2013.
[30]	Solomon, H., “The taste no chef can give”: Processing Street Food in Mumbai. Cultural Anthropology, 30, 1, 2015, 65-90.
[31]	Isaacs, B., The tastiest food is in the small streets. The politics of flavor and nostalgia in Bangkok. In: R.C.V. Cardoso, M. Companion and S.R. Marras (eds), Street food. Culture, Economy, healthy and Governance. Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, London and New York, 2014.