Street foods are everywhere. Wherever you go, there are foods – weird in some ways, exotic in other ways – that can satisfy your cravings or ease the pain of hunger. Or something to try and talk about with your friends and families.
Street foods run the gamut from snacks to full meals, simple to sophisticated. Nuts and fruits, teas and soft drinks are available almost everywhere in most of the developing countries.
Davao, the biggest city in the Philippines in terms of land area, is known for its Roxas Avenue Night Market.
One visitor who had experienced dining out with friends at the said place wrote: “We had a great time eating freshly grilled food – from pork barbecue to grilled squid, to barbecue longganisa, etc. We ate rice that is in a banana leaf. It was like my childhood all over again. The foods were varied and cheap. Try the buchi which is served hot and freshly cooked.”
Night markets, where food streets are a common thing, is getting popular even outside Davao City. There are some night markets in Tagum City, Davao del Norte and Digos City, Davao del Sur.
If you have been to Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Singapore, and Vietnam, you may feel at home since street foods are also widespread.
But mind you, street foods are also prevalent in industrialized countries like the United States and Australia. When this author visited New York and Melbourne, he observed some people selling street foods along the alleys.
“Street food is ready-to-eat food or drink sold by a hawker, or vendor, in a street or other public place, such as at a market or fair,” Wikipedia states. “It is often sold from a portable food booth, food cart, or food truck and meant for immediate consumption.”
These assorted viands (fish and meat) are being sold at the Roxas Avenue Night Market.
“There’s nothing like the street food business: small capital, convenient location, no space rentals and sometimes no power or water bills to pay for,” wrote Ronald M. Henson in an article which appeared in The S&T Post, a publication of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).
There are many types of foods sold in the street and among the favorites are: kwek-kwek (made of quail eggs covered in orange dough and deep fried), isaw (chicken intestine put on a stick and grilled), fish balls (minced fish rolled into balls), balut (pre-hatched duck egg), betamax (a cubed, curdled blood of a chicken), adidas (the marinated grilled chicken’s feet), atay (marinated and barbequed liver of chicken), and helmet (the grilled head of a chicken).
Other fillers of hungry stomachs are: maruya (a combination of bananas and flour, deep fried until golden brown), kikiam (made of ground pork and vegetables wrapped in bean curd sheets then deep-fried until golden), calamares (deep-fried battered squid rings), mais (corn on a cob, but it could also be salted boiled corn), and green mango with bagoong (unripe mango on a stick with a salty, fermented sauce or paste made from small shrimps or fish).
For drinks, the following are common: buko juice (coconut juice that can be drunk directly from the buko itself), iskrambol (a simple shake with artificial flavors), and sago and gulaman (a refreshingly cold drink made from tapioca and jelly).
There are restaurants and there are malls. In most provinces, people cook their own food at home. But how did street foods come into the picture? In the olden days, street foods were known as “peasant foods” or eaten only by poor people.
There were some historical notes that said Filipinos, who were enslaved by the abusive colonizers, were fed with leftovers – internal organs of dressed chicken or pork – as the edible meat goes to the masters.
Now, going back to the present time. According to Henson, the rapid increase of urban population in the country created a huge market for street foods. This is especially true among the low-income groups which have no time to cook their own meals.
In some instances, working housewives would resort to buying street foods as most of them lack proper cooking facilities. “And with increasing cost of fuel, the only immediate option is to turn to street foods,” noted Henson.
Recent studies have shown that sometimes even the rich and middle-class Filipinos also cater to street foods for a special and popular type of meal prepared by a particular vendor (“suki”).
Local authorities, international organizations and consumer associations are increasingly aware of the socioeconomic importance of street foods but also of their associated risks. “With the increasing pace of globalization and tourism,” the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said in a statement, “the safety of street food has become one of the major concerns of public health, and a focus for governments and scientists to raise public awareness.”
A DOST study some years back found out that most of the samples taken from the street foods sold in four urban centers – in Davao, Cagayan de Oro, Laguna, and University of the Philippines Diliman campus in Quezon City – did not pass quality standards.
Studies conducted by FNRI showed that microorganism contamination of street foods are mainly due to poor handling and unhygienic practices of both vendors and consumers.
Microbiological findings indicated the presence of coliforms such as Escherichia coli, Enterobacterae aerogenes, and E. cloacae in both barbecued and deep-fried animal by-products. This means that the bacteria load of the selected food samples was rather high, ranging from 240 to 2,400 per gram of food.
In a study done by the US-based Equity Policy Center, it was found that the largest single problem of the street food industry in most of the developing countries is the lack of access to clean water for washing utensils and hands.
“Where clean water is hard to obtain, a single bucket of untreated water might serve throughout the day, a banana leaf floating on top to hide the filth,” the study noted.
One of the health problems people may suffer from eating bacteria-laden street foods is diarrhea. Interventions to prevent diarrhea, including safe drinking-water, use of improved sanitation and hand washing with soap, can reduce disease risk, said the United Nations health agency.
“Are street foods boon or bane?” asked Henson. While they are a boon to vendors, street foods are also a bane among consumers. Because of this, concerned sectors – especially those selling near school campuses – are compelled to observe proper sanitation and cleanliness with stringent measures to discourage roadside food vendors from selling unsanitary and junk foods to students.
Quoting FNRI, Henson said that “any potential health hazards from street foods can be prevented if we only take the challenges of food quality and safety.”
“The risk of serious food poisoning outbreaks linked to street foods remains a threat in many parts of the world,” FAO said. “A lack of knowledge among street food vendors about the causes of food-borne disease is a major risk factor.”
