Mei Garden Chinese Restaurant
Takeaway
Address: 28 Scotch Street, Armagh, County Armagh BT61 7BY
Phone:028 3751 8710
Hours: Open today · 4:30–11:30 pm
The concept of prepared meals to be eaten elsewhere dates back to antiquity. Market and roadside stalls selling food were common in both Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome.[3] In Pompeii, archaeologists have found a number of thermopolia. These were service counters, opening onto the street, which provided food to be taken away and eaten elsewhere. There is a distinct lack of formal dining and kitchen area in Pompeian homes, which may suggest that eating, or at least cooking, at home was unusual. Over 200 thermopolia have been found in the ruins of Pompeii.[4]
In the cities of medieval Europe there were a number of street vendors selling take-out food. In medieval London, street vendors sold hot meat pies, geese, sheep’s feet and French wine, while in Paris roasted meats, squab, tarts and flans, cheeses and eggs were available. A large strata of society would have purchased food from these vendors, but they were especially popular amongst the urban poor, who would have lacked kitchen facilities in which to prepare their own food.[5] However, these vendors often had a bad reputation, often being in trouble with civic authorities reprimanding them for selling infected meat or reheated food. The cooks of Norwich often defended themselves in court against selling such things as “pokky pies” and “stynkyng mackerelles”.[6] In 10th and 11th century China, citizens of cities like Kaifeng and Hangzhou were able to buy pastries such as yuebing and congyoubing to take away. By the early 13th century, the two most successful such shops in Kaifeng had “upwards of fifty ovens”.[7] A traveling Florentine reported in the late 1300s that in Cairo, people carried picnic cloths made of raw hide to spread on the streets and eat their meals of lamb kebabs, rice and fritters that they had purchased from street vendors.[8] In Renaissance Turkey, many crossroads saw vendors selling “fragrant bites of hot meat”, including chicken and lamb that had been spit roasted.[9]
Aztec marketplaces had vendors that sold beverages such as atolli (“a gruel made from maize dough”), almost 50 types of tamales (with ingredients that ranged from the meat of turkey, rabbit, gopher, frog, and fish to fruits, eggs, and maize flowers),[10] as well as insects and stews.[11] After Spanish colonization of Peru and importation of European food stocks like wheat, sugarcane and livestock, most commoners continued primarily to eat their traditional diets, but did add grilled beef hearts sold by street vendors.[12] Some of Lima’s 19th century street vendors such as “Erasmo, the ‘negro’ sango vendor” and Na Aguedita are still remembered today.[13]
Street food vendors in early 20th century New York City.
During the American colonial period, street vendors sold “pepper pot soup” (tripe) “oysters, roasted corn ears, fruit and sweets,” with oysters being a low-priced commodity until the 1910s when overfishing caused prices to rise.[14] In 1707, after previous restrictions that had limited their operating hours, street food vendors had been banned in New York City.[15] Many women of African descent made their living selling street foods in America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; with products ranging from fruit, cakes and nuts in Savannah, Georgia, to coffee, biscuits, pralines and other sweets in New Orleans.[16] In the 1800s street food vendors in Transylvania County, North Carolina sold gingerbread-nuts, cream mixed with corn, and bacon and other meat fried on tops of ceramic vessels with hot coals inside.[17]
