Fast food

Fast food (also known as Quick Service Restaurant or QSR within the industry itself) is the term given to food that can be prepared and served very quickly. While any meal with low preparation timecan be considered to be fast food, typically the term refers to food sold in a restaurant or store with preheated or precooked ingredients, and served to the customer in a packaged form fortake-out/take-away. The term "fast food" was recognized in a dictionary by Merriam–Webster in 1951.
Outlets may be stands or kiosks, which may provide no shelter or seating, or fast food restaurants (also knownas quick service restaurants). Franchise operations which are part of restaurant chains have standardized foodstuffs shipped to each restaurant from central locations.
The capital requirementsinvolved in opening up a non-franchised fast food restaurant are relatively low. Restaurants with much higher sit-in ratios, where customers tend to sit and have their orders brought to them in aseemingly more upscale atmosphere, may be known in some areas as fast casual restaurants.
The concept of ready-cooked food for sale is closely connected with urban development. In Ancient Rome cities hadstreet stands that sold bread and wine. A fixture of East Asian cities is the noodle shop. Flatbread and falafel are today ubiquitous in the Middle East. Popular Indian fast food dishes include vada pav,panipuri and dahi vada. In the French-speaking nations of West Africa, roadside stands in and around the larger cities continue to sell—as they have done for generations—a range of ready-to-eat,char-grilled meat sticks known locally as brochettes (not to be confused with the bread snack of the same name found in Europe).
Pre-modern Europe
In the cities of Roman antiquity, much of the urbanpopulation living in insulae, multi-storey apartment blocks, depended on food vendors for much of their meals. In the mornings, bread soaked in wine was eaten as a quick snack and cooked vegetables and...