Street food, according to the definition of FAO, is made up of those foods, including drinks, ready for consumption, which are mainly sold on the street or in other public places, even by street traders, often on a temporary banquet, but also from vans or itinerant carts.

Street food , according to the definition of FAO, consists of those foods, including drinks, ready for consumption, which are sold (and often also prepared) especially in the street or in other public places (such as flea markets or fairs), also from street vendors, often on a temporary banquet, but also from vans or street carts. In the historical centers of some Italian cities, a typology of small rooms specialized in the preparation and sale of food to eat on the street has spread.

Street food consumption generally allows you to eat more informally, faster, and less expensive than eating food in a restaurant or other designated place; for this reason, this form of nutrition is often preferred over more formal forms of consumption, so as to make it occupy an important place in human nutrition: FAO estimates indicate as many as 2.5 billion people a day the number of those which feed in this way.

Street food is part of the wider informal food sector, a sector which, in developing countries, represents one of the strategies adopted to provide for one's own food needs.

Some street foods fall into the category of finger food and fast food.
In other cases, street food consumption is aimed at foods which, due to their scarce food and cultural value, are classified in the junk food category.

Street food is closely linked to the take away / take-out phenomenon, and to other phenomena of informal food consumption, such as snacks, snacks, fast food, packed lunches.

In some cases, street food can be administered to consumers through vending machines, a booming method, with distribution machines located in particular places, such as train or bus stations, bus and subway stops, workplaces, hospitals. , schools, shopping centers, car service stations.

In the field of automatic distribution, the type of snack food prevails, often in industrial preparations and packaging, and both hot and cold drinks.

Automatic distribution offers its own particular advantage, the possibility of guaranteeing an uninterrupted service over 24 hours, and the possibility of administration to customers in the most disparate places, even in areas without traditional commercial services.

The breadth of the food phenomenon, highlighted by FAO statistics, is connected to other anthropological aspects, such as the relevant role occupied in the human economy, but also the bringing into play of important cultural, identity and ethnic values. Often, in fact, the products to be consumed on the street are local or regional specialties, as in the case of the pani câ meusa palermitano, the 'O pere e' or musso of the Neapolitan, the Messina focaccia or the kalakukko of the Finnish Lake Region.

In other cases, however, the products do not have a particular cultural link with the territory in which they are offered, or, although they have owned one in the past, they no longer retain it, because they have now been lost as a result of their diffusion outside the areas of origin (as is the case with pizza and kebab). In some cases, however, the diffusion outside the original cultural boundaries, even wide, has not erased its ethnic and identity connotation.

Another very important socio-economic aspect is linked to the role that women play in the phenomenon of street food, intervening in the various production phases, including preparation, transport and final sale on the street. Especially in developing countries, women play an important role and, in some economic and ethnic contexts, they even represent the largely majority working component.

Some realities, such as India and Bangladesh, are instead in sharp contrast, with a market custom that sees the traditional male component of sellers dominate, with percentages from 90 to 99%. However, even in such cultural contexts there are significant percentages of female employment, not only in the food preparation phase, but also in the commercial one, in which they play the role of sales aides.

A characteristic of food prepared by female hands appears to be its greater proximity to tradition, in the variety and use of ingredients, compared to that of male production. According to some studies, the street food of female preparation is also of better quality as regards the presence of bacterial charges.

Food aspects
Given the economic and cultural dimension of the phenomenon, street food receives considerable interest from food and cultural anthropology scholars, and from international organizations that deal with food and health.

Food safety
One of the aspects is that of the safety and nutritional quality of the preparations. The World Health Organization has identified three qualifying critical points:

Preparation processes must be adequate to eliminate food risks or reduce them to levels considered acceptable.
The methods of preparation should prevent the proliferation of pathogens, the development of toxins, and not involve risks at work
The methods of preparation and packaging should ensure that the foods are not susceptible to subsequent contamination
Studies carried out in India, in the city of Pune, by the International Development Research Center (IDRC), have shown that, from the point of view of bacterial load, the quality of food prepared at home by women to be sold on the street is much better than that of food prepared in another way.

Nutritional value
Among the problems associated with preparations destined for consumption on the street, there is the risk that the tendency towards greater cost-effectiveness of the product pushes producers to prefer the use of cheaper food fats and oils, and therefore less valuable from a point of view. food.

Another aspect of interest affects the quality of some basic nutritional factors: while the presence of some stable nutrients, such as fat-soluble vitamins and minerals, is fairly well guaranteed, there is a risk that some poorly stable nutrients, such as water-soluble vitamins, will be depleted or destroyed by the preparation and conservation processes. Given the size of the food phenomenon, it would result in a scarce supply of labile nutrients in the diet of people who make extensive and habitual use of street food.