The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Consumption and Consumer Studies

Fast Food

ANNECHEN BAHR BUGGE

National Institute for Consumer Research, Norway

DOI: 10.1002/9781118989463.wbeccs116

Fast food is often described as simple snacks served from restaurants, snack bars, kiosks, bars, or shops. A characteristic of these types of dishes is that they are quick to prepare, serve, and eat. Also often known as “street food,” due to portability and informality, fast food can be traced back to the ancient Roman cities and so is not exclusively tied to the hamburger, pizza, and hot dog meals arising in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The American fast food concept has been a particularly successful innovation in the post-World War II era, although the first commercial hot dog stand opened in New York in 1871. The idea of quick, ready-made, and portable food reached Europe when the first snack bars were established in American and European cities. These were alcohol-free restaurants with young people as their main patrons. The snack bar concept arose along with the rise of teenage culture, in which young people sought out their own places that catered to their cultural and culinary tastes. Food and food establishments became symbols of social and cultural identity for young people, marking them off from adults and “adult culture,” and making the fast food restaurant emblematic of this youth culture. When the American hot dog reached Europe in the 1950s, it became a very fashionable food to eat among many young people, as did the hamburgers from McDonald's ...