Talk:Street food

Street food

Swept from User talk:Ypsilon/Laboratory

Would you like other people to edit this while it's still in your user space? Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:29, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Actually why not "release" Street food right away? We have plenty of shorter Travel topics, and somehow I think you have a whole lot to write about street food (if certain other Voyagers who know the US, East and Southeast Asia also would note that it exists I think this could easily become one of our best travel topics :)). ϒpsilon (talk) 08:59, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Dishes that you can encounter in several countries

Ikan brought up the question where in the list street foods that are common in many countries should be added.

1. In some cases there is a clear country of origin, or where the food has been popularized and in that case we should list it under that country and mention that it is popular elsewhere too.
2. If they somewhere have created a version of the dish remarkably different from the original one, then it could be listed separately there.
3. Something that's popular in a large area (e.g. falafel) and it's hard to determine where it was invented can be listed under the continent or the continent region.

ϒpsilon (talk) 12:40, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

So chaat should be moved to "South Asia," falafel and shawarma to "Levant" (defined as Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon). Ikan Kekek (talk) 13:06, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Yes, or maybe Middle East (Pedia says falafel is popular in Egypt too and might even originate from there). ϒpsilon (talk) 13:17, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Feel free to move it. We may need to create subcategories of countries, so that "South Asia" is not right before "South Korea," etc. I have yet to visit Egypt, but my understanding is that falafel there uses fava beans, whereas chickpeas or as much or more used in the Levant. Ikan Kekek (talk) 13:25, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Structure

Building upon the discussion about FTT's, let's talk about how to upgrade this article :-) I was looking for a better (colourful) banner image, but I'm having no luck so far. What about structure? Do we want to create a list? It seems hard to pick and choose the "main" dishes, really... We should somehow make clear that this is just a list of examples. Or do we want to rewrite the whole thing as prose, mentioning the main dishes? JuliasTravels (talk) 14:59, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Here are some random thoughts from the "culprit" of much of what's in this article :)

To me the purpose of the article is to give the reader examples of dishes they should be looking for and remember to try when they're visiting a certain country because they may not get it (or the authentic version of it) elsewhere. Therefore we shouldn't cut the number of mentioned dishes to the bare minimum (=just mentioning 2-3 common dishes that are mentioned in the country article anyway), but also include things that people may not have heard about before. The opening section in Street food#Eat already mentions that the article is a sample of what you can find, and this article can indeed never be complete but I don't really see it as a problem. If some country section gets astronomically long (something like Manila#Eat) it could get its own article.

One thing that would be good to have, at least for the big street food countries, some sort of introduction describing the cuisine in general and mentioning some famous places where street food is served.

Sure, the current layout does look a bit monotonous with just one bulleted one liner after another. Turning it into prose may be a good idea, on the other hand that would probably take a whole lot of work. Also, it may make sense to combine the content of country sections, as many dishes are native to regions rather than particular countries. --ϒpsilon (talk) 18:43, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Copied from Wikivoyage talk:Destination of the month candidates#Running out of potential FTTs? because it might be useful to consider:

"I'm very much open to suggestions of restructuring that article, but I disagree that that selected list is close to overly long. It would look less long if we used paragraphs of prose, rather than bulletted lists. Kerala#Eat, while still a work in progress in my opinion, has some paragraphs that might provide a useful template, in that they put the name of the food in bold and the English explanation of what it is in italicized parentheses."

And to add to that: I agree with ϒpsilon that it makes sense to group some regions together because of commonalities in food, so that, for example, Southeast Asia should be grouped together, so that we can mention that various varieties of fried rice and fried noodles are common street foods throughout the region, and that satay/sate is popular throughout the area, etc. Then, specifically Malaysia, Indonesian and Thai street foods should also be mentioned. So from the general to the particular. The same thing can be done for Turkish-influenced places, which might include everywhere from the Balkans through the Middle East to Central Asia (kebabs and various mezes shared in common). Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:21, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Good, so yes, we do want a list, with prose in between and some regions clustered together. Also the countries with little real street food culture could be clustered (like the Benelux, or Scandinavia). I'd say the Balkans should probably get their own little group, as street food in the Balkans and the Middle East are not all that similar. We need to be wary of confusing local specialities or local foods with street food. Especially in colder countries, many local foods are not typically eaten as street food. If you'd ask a random Dutch person what street food is in the Netherlands is, they'd come up with fries and herring maybe, but after that döner, falafel, Vietnamese springrolls and fried noodles long before stroopwafel, kaassoufflé or kapsalon fries.

I agree we shouldn't stick to the bare minimum, but we might want to make some choices. Detailed info per country is maybe rather something that belongs in country articles. I'm just thinking of the similar discussion at Talk:Tipping#Duplication_between_this_article_and_country_articles, which lead to all the country info being moved back to the country articles - I would like to save us that work :-) JuliasTravels (talk) 14:27, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

In cases where combining of several countries is needed, I think our own continent region system is a good rule of thumb.

I would disagree with putting dishes in the country’s articles, because I’m afraid it would make the article less exciting. Tipping is an article of the "Concern" type so there it does not matter very much. On the other hand this article, like Gothic architecture are "Reasons to travel" that should make people want to do stuff should have a lot of interesting examples.

Sure, if something is just available at sit down restaurants and at home, then it should fly off the list. However if the dish is also a kind of street food (every day or on festivals and markets), then we should have it here, even if locals on average would rather have a kebab or go to McD. Because, looking at it the other way around, some dishes you just cannot find outside their country of origin and we as a travel guide should make travelers aware of new experiences, right? :)

Finally, kebab, falafel, spring rolls, hot dogs etc. shouldn’t obviously be listed in all countries you can get them, as that would make the article veeeeery long! ϒpsilon (talk) 19:38, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Well no, that's not what I was suggesting, but I do think we should give accurate accounts, not wishful thinking ones that sound nicer. It's not about what locals rather have, but what travellers can actually expect to find on the streets. I'm not sure we have the same definitions in mind though... would you say McDonalds qualifies as street food? JuliasTravels (talk) 20:02, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Hmm, everyday street food in Finland (in practice limited to "hot dog kiosks") isn't actually very different from what you would be get at the take away from fast food restaurants. The restaurant days and such events are a bit different.

I'm trying to say that while e.g. an Asian night market's selection is lightyears from what you can expect in anywhere in Northern Europe, we should still mention whatever little there is. ϒpsilon (talk) 20:17, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't consider McDonald's street food. It's true that you can take it to go, but it's sold mostly by restaurants. Then again, I live in Manhattan, which is a non-driving subculture, and in most of the US, lots of people get McDonald's at drive-through windows. But is eating food in a car really what we mean by "street food"? I think not. I think that's road food, which is different even if "street" and "road" are usually synonyms. Street food is literally food that you eat while sitting, standing or walking on the street. Do you agree? Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:19, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

McDonald's and other chain restaurants' products isn't really street food, but in some places the closest you can get to street food. ϒpsilon (talk) 10:20, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

In which case, we should avoid mentioning those places in this article in any way that would imply that they have street food. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:26, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

That's correct. ϒpsilon (talk) 10:39, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

(indent reset) So, now I've restructured the article into regions, rather than countries (a couple of really big countries still remain). The next step now, I guess, would be to add some prose from mentioning famous street markets and introducing the Fritkot to telling a little about the background of different dishes when appropriate. And as I said before, let's make readers aware of local specialties, even if those are just available e.g. one month a year. ϒpsilon (talk) 20:35, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Is this just becoming a food list?

I notice a lot of 'street food' is actually just food. In the British Isles (for example) you don't typically buy fish and chips from street vendors.

Should we examine the criteria for including items? --Andrewssi2 (talk) 03:42, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

The article isn't becoming anything. I wrote up the article in 2014 as a list, based on Lonely Planet's Street food book, and then expanded it with stuff from Wikipedia. After dropping the article for other projects, the article has grown as fast as our travel topics in general (ie. not at all).

Are there really no fish and chips stalls and food trucks in the UK? Wikipedia suggests otherwise.

For the criteria, I think that if something is in general available as street food it should be included here. ϒpsilon (talk) 06:20, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Mobile fish & chip trucks do indeed exist in the UK (and Australia). My point was more that today is that you are likely to experience it in a pub or restaurant. If street food is 'anything' that could potentially be sold out of a truck then it is not really getting to the essence of street food.... --Andrewssi2 (talk) 09:13, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Dishes that are very rarely sold out of stalls, trucks, carts, holes in the wall etc. should of course be slashed. On the other hand, I think that dishes that are reasonably available as street food should stay, despite being available in some form at restaurants too. Probably all dishes listed (possibly with some modifications) are also available in sit-down restaurants, for example as entrees, side dishes, desserts or on buffet tables. ϒpsilon (talk) 13:02, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

No Korean street food!?

I want to start adding this glaringly missing piece of information, but am overwhelmed by the task. 188.120.129.88 17:56, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Some Korean street food, for example hotteok, is mentioned in Street_food#Northeast_Asia, but you're more than welcome to add more of them. As one of the major contributors to this article, I was planning to turn the content into running text to make it more comfortable to read but never got time. ϒψιλον (talk) 18:04, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Just start with whatever you think of first. It doesn't matter how long it takes you to add everything you want to add; the site will still be here. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:50, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Structure again

An article which has information on different kinds of street foods across the whole world is always going to be challenging to organise. One issue I saw that was that sometimes small regions and countries within a large region had the same heading level, which was very confusing. For example, Southeast Asia and the Philippines. A general Southeast Asia section exists because there are street foods common in most countries of the region while there are also foods unique to one or two countries which should be covered in its own section. Because of the need to cover street food at both a larger region level and a country/smaller region level, there should be a clear distinction between the headings used. Within Asia, I changed the larger region to a Heading 4 while the smaller region or country is both bolded and italicised. I would've just made it italics but it then clashes with the "See also" templates. I still think this can be improved and would welcome any feedback. Gizza ^(roam) 04:00, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

After thinking about this more, changing the lower level headings to just italics and moving the "See also"s to the top of the section in a similar way to Mediterranean cuisine will look best. I didn't explain this clearly but I will plunge forward so everyone can see what I mean. Gizza ^(roam) 22:31, 17 December 2019 (UTC)