IS STREET FOOD AN AMERICAN TREND?
No, It Was Born in Italy (but We’re a little ashamed of it)
By walking the street
Today, we Italians are led to believe that street food is a trend imported from America, where food trucks transformed into traveling kitchens or small carts selling hot dogs are a fundamental part of the U.S. dining scene, becoming a quintessential element of urban landscapes. In reality, eating pre-cooked food on the streets was the norm in Italian cities from antiquity until the late 1700s—about two thousand years during which most urban residents rarely cooked at home and instead bought ready-to-eat meals, preferably consumed immediately and without utensils, which few people owned.
To be eaten in the streets with hands
A significant portion of what we consider traditional Italian cuisine originated as street food. Consider pizza and pasta, now iconic symbols of Italian dining, which were born in the narrow streets of Naples. They catered to the dietary needs of a rapidly growing, impoverished population living in homes without kitchens or any cooking tools. Neapolitans were historically called "leaf eaters" (*mangiafoglie*) because they primarily ate raw vegetables. By the 1600s, however, they became known as "macaroni eaters" (*mangiamaccheroni*), mainly for economic and fiscal reasons. In any case, their dietary habits did not involve cooking by the consumer, nor did they involve utensils: macaroni, pizza, and even salads were eaten on the streets with bare hands.
The Hamburger? It Has Precedents in Historic Italian Cities
Even the quintessential symbol of American street food—the hamburger—has illustrious precedents in the dietary traditions of Italian cities before the Industrial Revolution. Here, butcher shops played a central role. In medieval and early modern times, the butcher shop was not only a place where animals were slaughtered and meat sold but also a hub for various interconnected economic activities, from tanning leather and producing candles and soap to making cheese and crafting combs and other small items from horns or bones.
In this complex system, certain vendors also sourced their products from butcher shops, but their activities had to remain entirely separate from those of butchers. These vendors were the tripe sellers, lampredotto vendors, and those selling spleen or other offal. Most of these trades were itinerant and catered to a lower-middle-class consumer base, often living in homes with no amenities—or, in some cases, without homes at all. Since offal spoils more quickly than other cuts of meat, selling cooked dishes rather than raw offal became almost inevitable. These street vendors thus became key players in pre-industrial street food.
This piece of the economy was so important that butchers were expressly forbidden from selling cooked meat. This ensured oversight both before the animal was slaughtered and after the meat was cut. Only innkeepers or street food vendors were allowed to sell cooked meat. The fragmentation of the supply chain was the primary means of safeguarding market transparency, ensuring consumer protection.
When Being Wealthy Means Pretending to Be Poor (The Opposite Is Never Achievable...)
All this, of course, created strong prejudice against these products. Pasta, pizza, and offal were considered food for the poor—or even the desperate. By the late 19th century, Pellegrino Artusi, in his seminal cookbook, included a few recipes for offal but almost apologized for doing so. He referred to kidneys, brains, and tripe as “ordinary products” and “unsuitable for delicate stomachs.” It wasn’t about how they were prepared—offal, he wrote, was inherently low-quality food, “no matter how it is cooked or seasoned.”
Artusi seemed to suggest that his book, *The Science of Cooking and the Art of Eating Well*, couldn’t entirely omit offal recipes, but if it had been up to him, he wouldn’t have included them. In any case, he discouraged their consumption.
Once again, the economic boom of the 1950s and 1960s resolved the issue, sparing Italians the embarrassment of having to consume foods that reminded them of recent poverty, such as offal. But don’t despair—after a long period of neglect, in the past 10–15 years, these types of meats have made a comeback. The spleen sandwich has become a symbol of Palermo, while lampredotto, which had practically disappeared, has once again taken over the streets of Florence.
In short, when you’re wealthy, it’s quite chic to pretend to be poor. It’s the opposite that’s impossible to pull off—what a shame...