Fast food restaurant Essay

The yard of modern life is immobile, and nowhere is it stead unbendableer than in the States. We want fast transportation, fast communication, fast computers, fast photos, fast music, fast repairs, and fast serv methamphetamine hydrochloride from the businesses we frequent. It is from the last of these that we got fast solid fodder. At first, it was a matter of fast service. Fountain and devalued pabulum service of process was the title of a swap magazine, which published statements like this from 1951 The partners have lead old hands at spotting the type of conventi unityer that will patronize their fast nourishment service. Gradually service disappeargond, and in 1954 we find fast feed for thought by itself in the title Fountain and turbulent Food. Incidentally, the trade magazine renamed itself immobile Food by 1960. In February of that year, the magazine noted, refined scallops be really fast victuals because they come ready to cook. And in July it remarked, Fast aliment type decimateing places do the lions per centum of business for breakfast and noon meals eaten egress. The fast sustenance revolution was a quick success passim the land, and two decades youthfulr it was conquering the world.The U. S.outcry against infiltration from the south is matched in vehemence by our neighbors outcry against fast-food imperialism and the gradual the Statesnization of their throw societies. noted the Christian Science Monitor in 1982. Thanks to fast food, families that formerly ate home cooking now eat out or bring back take-home fast food in record numbers. Its virtue is speed, not flavor. Its little than ideal nutritional assess may have influenced the coining of an other(a) term twenty years later, one that also puts a four-letter epithet in front of food cast aside food (1973). Gale Encyclopedia of US History Fast FoodTop.Home subroutine library History, Politics & Society US History Encyclopedia Fast food is what one eat s in the vast majority of Americas restaurants. The term denotes speed in both food preparation and customer service, as well as speed in customer have habits. The restaurant industriousness, however, has traditionally favourite(a) the imageation quick service. For hourly lock earnerswhether manufacturing plant hands or store clerkstake-out lunch wagons and sit-down lunch counters appe atomic number 18d at factory gates, streetcar stops, and throughout downtown districts in the late nineteenth century.For travelers, lunch counters also appe atomic number 18d in railroad stations nationwide. heat up food prevailed for its speed of preparation, as did get up f atomic number 18 and other element that could be held in the hand and quickly eaten, quite literally, on the run. vicissitude foods, such as hot dogs, burgers, french fry, came to dominate, first popularized at dissimilar worlds fairs and at the nations resorts. Soft drinks and ice cream desserts also became a mainstay. Thus, fast food also came to imply diets high in fat and caloric intake.By the end of the 20th century, the typical Ameri sack up consumed some three ground plains and four orders of french fries a week. Roughly a quarter of all Americans bought fast food every day. The rise of automobile ownership in the coupled States brought threatening change to the restaurant industry, with fast food being twistinged in a manikin of drive-in restaurant coiffures. Mom-and-pop enterprise was harnessed, largely through franchising, in the building of regional and national restaurant manacles Howard bathroomsons, Dairy Queen, Burger King, Kentucky fried Chicken, Pizza Hut, and Taco Tico.Place-product- box was brought force in full to the fore severally restaurant in a chain variously sh ars the same logo, color scheme, architectural design motif, and point-of-purchase advertising, all configured in attention-getting, signlike buildings. Typically, fast food restaurants were l ocated at the roadside, complete with driveways, parking lots, and, later, drive-through windows for those who preferred to eat elsewhere, including those who ate in their cars as dashboard diners. Critical to industry success was the development of stem and pliable containers that kept food hot and facilitated carry-out. such(prenominal) packaging, because of the volume of largely nonbiodegradable run out it creates, has become a substantial environmental task. In 2000, Mcdonaldsthe largest quick-service chainoperated at some 13,755 locations in the united States and Canada. The political partys distinctive prosperous arches have stretch worldwide, well beyond North America. Abroad, fast food came to stand as an central symbol of American cultural, if not frugal, prowess. And, honourable as it did at home, fast food became, as well, a fall out icon of modernity.Historically, fast food merchandising contri saveed substantially to the quickening pace of American life thr ough standardization. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, it fully embraced mass production and mass merchandising techniques, reduced to the scale of a restaurant. Chains of restaurants, in turn, became fully rationalized within standardized purchasing, marketing, and management systems. Such a system depends on a pool of cheap, largely illiterate labor, the quick service restaurant industry being notorious for its dispirited wages and, accordingly, its rapid turn everyplace of personnel. Bibliography Jakle, John A. , and Keith A. Sculle.Fast Food roadside Restaurants in the Automobile Age. Balti more than Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. Pillsbury, Richard. No Foreign Food The American diet and Place. Boulder, Colo. Westview Press, 1998. Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation The Dark side of meat of the All-American Meal. innovative York HarperCollins, 2002. John A. Jakle Gale Encyclopedia of Food & Culture Fast FoodTop Home depository library Food & Cooking Fo od & Culture Encyclopedia What is termed fast food in the United States today most commonly consists of hot, freshly alert, and wrapped food items, served to customers across a counter or through a drive-up window. cognize as both fast food and quick-service food in the restaurant industry, these items are routinely sold and delivered in an amount of time ranging from a few seconds to several(prenominal) minutes they now vary widely in food type, encompassing virtually all kinds of meats, preparation methods, and social cuisines. gimcrack beefburgers and french fried potatoes are mollify the products most readily determine as fast food, however the list of items sold in the format continually increases.Fried fish and shellfish, hot dogs, chicken, pizza, shout beef, and pasta are commonly sold at quick-service outlets. In addition to these staples, some quick-service restaurants handle a broad menu of Americanized Mexican, Greek, and Chinese foods. Some fast-food outlets off er lastingness items, such as sushi, clams, or ribs, and others nevertheless sell complete home-cooked meals over their counters. though menus and delivery formats vary greatly, fast foods heading common denominators include immediate customer service, packaging to go, and inexpensive pricing.The particular origins of fast food are vague, probably predating written history. Hungry great deal are as old as civilization itself, as are entrepreneurs eager to satisfy their hunger. Food vendors in ancient cities sold prepared items to passersby on the street. The actual foods varied greatly, depending on period and culture, but they broadly comprised simple, inexpensive fare sold to people of modest means. Immigrants brought a variety of food flares to America, often preserving these for decades as a comforting connection with their ethnic past.Though many immigrant foodways were elaborate and ritualistic, most groups had one or two simple items that they consumed on a passing(a) infrastructure. As a rule, immigrant groups preferred their indigenous grains corn from the Americas, rice from Asia, and wheat from Europe. Often these served as the basis for the peasant foods of their homelands. Pasta and flat breads came over with Italians tortillas, beans, and tamales arrived with northbound Mexicans and Germans brought dark breads, along with a variety of fatty sausages (which later mutated into the hot dog).Asian immigrants move to eat rice as the basis of their diet. In the early 20th century fast food remained primarily the fare of the masses. Vendors wheeled their pushcarts daily to factory gates, selling their wares to hungry workers. Often catering to the tastes of the particular factorys dominant ethnic group, they charged customers pennies for basic items such as sausages, meatballs, or stew. Though popular among male industrial workers, this pushcart interlingual rendition of fast food never became mainstream cuisine.The urban diner was the trans itional level between the vendors pushcart and modern fast food. nigh early diners were small restaurants, with limited seating, sometimes constructed out of converted railway system carriages or streetcars. They served simple foods to working-class customers on a short-order basis, commonly cooking each meal individually when ordered. Menus varied, but fried foods were common. Though diners often emphasized speed in delivering food, customers routinely lingered before and subsequently eating.The burger still stands out as the single most important American fast food, though the precise origin of this meat sandwich is the subject of historical disagreement. People have eaten chopped beef throughout the ages, and it was long a fixture in many world cultures. The argumentation of the American hamburger seems to point directly, as its name indicates, back to the German city of Hamburg. First appearing on American restaurant menus in the mid-nineteenth century, ground beef patti es bore the title hamburg steak. By the centurys close, vendors regularly sold meatballs wrapped in slices of bread at county fairs and spend festivals. Regional legends attribute the invention of this snack to several different individuals, but its true originator remains a mystery. The Rise of Modern Fast Food Our modern image of the fast-food restaurant dates back to 1916, when Walt Anderson began selling hamburger sandwiches from an outdoor stand on a Wichita street corner. Anderson apparently flattened a meatball and placed it between two halves of a bun. His sandwich right away became popular, attracting long lines of hungry buyers.By 1921, Anderson had joined local insurance divisor Edgar Billy Ingram to form the livid Castle System. After opening several identical restaurants in Wichita during their first year, the partners cursorily spread their business to neighboring cities, then to nine major urban areas throughout the Midwest and on the East Coast. What separated the clear Castle System from earlier short-order restaurants was its very streamlined menu, comprising only hamburgers, coffee, Coca-Cola, and pie a uniform architectural style and strict standardization of food quality, preparation methods, and employee performance.By the close of the 1920s, White Castles aggressive marketing and rapid spread had do the hamburger one of the most popular foods in America. Other entrepreneurs in short noticed White Castles success in the hamburger business. Very closely copying White Castles products, architecture, and company name, competing unseasoned chain also thrived, carrying the hamburger craze across the nation to smaller cities and towns. The White Tower chain appeared in 1925, make uptually contest White Castles dominance in several Union cities.Krystals, assailable in 1929 in Chattanooga, soon became the hamburger powerhouse of the southeastern states. White Castles hamburger sandwich, along with its many imitators, became a dail y staple for many working-class Americans. It be so successful, in fact, that by 1930 the president of the American Restaurant Association identified the fast-food hamburger as the most important food item in the nation. Hamburgers became even more a mainstream food during the 1930s. The larger restaurant gyves began marketing their products to middle-class buyers, and even more Americans became burger lovers.Despite the harsh economy of the considerable Depression, most fast-food chains act to thrive, and in many cases grew considerably. Most bear upond selling the White Castlestyle hamburger, but late in the decade the Big Boy chain spread east from California, introducing its unexampled double-decker hamburger sandwich along the way. By the end of the Depression, America was a solidly hamburger-eating culture. After prospering in the Depression, however, the fast-food industry suffered a serious setback during World War II.Shortages of necessary foodstuffs, such as meat, su gar, tomatoes, and coffee, meant limited menu offerings and often a significant loss of business. Attempting to come to providing meals to their customers, fast-food restaurants experimented with different items that were still in abundance, including soy patties, chili, and french fried potatoes. tied(p) more damaging than commodity shortages was the very embarrassed unemployment rate, which meant that most workers bypassed the restaurant industry in favor of higher-paying work.Adjusting to this labor shortage, chains soon replaced their all-male hands with women and teenagers, two groups who would become their most common employees. Despite attempts to find appetizing alternative foods, and despite the shifts in workforce, much of the fast-food industry was a misadventure of the war by 1945, more than half of Americas restaurants had unappealing down, including several of the major fast-food chains. Rebuilding the fast-food industry after the war proved a slow process. No s ingle chain emerged to claim dominance, and smallish innovation occurred.Individual companies struggled to restore their prewar prosperity, and new regional chains tried to gain a foothold. Suffering the effects of escalating costs and still under the threat of continued shortages due to unstable food supplies in war-torn countries, fast-food restaurants often had to double prices to remain in business. As macrocosm shifted from Americas cities to suburbia during the 1950s, the fast-food industry quickly followed. Early chains such as White Castle and White Tower, resisting moving to the suburbs, were quickly eclipsed by upstart franchised chains.Burger King and McDonalds outlets became common fixtures at suburban crossroads, selling burgers, fries, and shakes to hungry families. Burger Kings Jim McLamore and McDonalds Ray Kroc each sought to build one of his restaurants in every American town, and they open up hundreds of new Burger Kings and McDonalds each year in the 1960s. To accomplish this rapid expansion, they relied heavily on franchise investors, enforced strict product union throughout their chains, and aggressively communicated in every newly opened territory. With McDonalds and Burger Kings success, Burger Chef outlets soon appeared nearby.Arbys, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Taco tam-tam were not far behind. By the late 1960s, fast food no longer meant just hamburger restaurants, but had diversified to include quick-service pizza, roast beef, chicken, and tacos. To give an idea of the dimensions to which the fast-food industry has grown, in 1999 Americans consumed over 26 billion pounds of beef, much of it as hamburgers. In that year McDonalds alone had more than ten thousand restaurants in the United States, from which it grossed in excess of $13 billion in revenue. Criticism of Fast Food Despite the general popularity of fast food in modern American culture, critics abound.Since the 1930s, articles and books have condemned the industry, ex posing allegedly poor sanitary conditions, unhealthy food products, associate environmental problems, and unsporting working conditions. Whether it warrants the attention or not, the fast-food industry is still regularly cited for exploiting adolescent workers, polluting, and contributing to obesity and other serious health problems among American consumers. American beef consumption, and more specifically the fast-food hamburger industry, is often blamed for the suntan of the Amazon rain forests to make way for more grazing lands for beef cattle.Early foes of fast food cited the deplorable filth of many hamburger stands, in addition to claiming that the beef ground for their sandwiches was either spoiled, diseased, or simply of low quality. In fact, many critics maintained that much of the meat utilize in fast-food hamburgers came from horse carcasses. The high fat content of fast food was also controversial. Despite deceptive industry claims round the high quality and the he alth benefits of their products, in the 1920s and 1930s concerned nutritionists warned the public nigh the medical dangers of regular burger consumption.This distrust and criticism of fast food continue today, extending even further to include dire warnings about the industrys use of genetically modified and antibiotic-laden beef products. Most major chains have responded to recent attacks by prominently posting calorie and nutritional charts in their restaurants, advertising fresh ingredients, and offering alternatives to their fried foods. Despite a few more health-conscious items on the menu, fast-food chains now aggressively advertise the construct that bigger is better, offering large super-size or biggie portions of french fries, muted drinks, and milkshakes.Critics point to this marketing emphasis as a reason for an unreasonable and greatly increasing per-capita caloric intake among fast-food consumers, resulting in fast-growing pass judgment of obesity in the United Stat es. Increased litter is another problem that critics have blamed on the fast-food industry. Selling their products in paper wrappings and paper bags, early outlets created a source of litter that had not previously existed. Wrappers strewn about city streets, especially those close to fast-food restaurants, brought harsh criticism, and often inspired new local ordinances to address the problem.Some municipalities actually forced chains to unclouded up litter that was imprinted with their logos, but such sanctions were rare. Fast-food wrappers became part of the urban, and later suburban, landscape. Since bags and wrappers were decisive in the delivery of fast food, the industry as a unanimous continued to use disposable packaging, superficially assuaging public criticism by providing outside trash receptacles for the discarded paper. Years later, environmentalists again attacked the industry for unjustified packaging litter, criticizing both the volume and the content of the ref use.By the early 1970s, the harshest criticisms focused more on the synthetic materials used in packaging, and less on the carelessly discarded paper. Critics derided the industrys use of styrofoam sandwich containers and seltzer cups, claiming that these products were not sufficiently biodegradable and were clogging landfills. Facing mounting oppositeness from a growing environmental movement, most of the major chains returned to packaging food in paper wrappings or small cardboard boxes. industry activists have criticized fast-food chains tendency to employ inexpensive teenage workers. commonly offering the lowest possible wages, with no health or retreat benefits, these restaurants often find it difficult hiring adults for stressful, fast-paced jobs. Many critics claim that the industry preys on teenagers, who will work for less pay and are less likely to organize. Though these accusations may have merit, the industrys reliance on teenage labor also has inherent liabilities, such as a high employee turnover rate, which result in substantial recruiting and homework costs.Companies have countered criticism about their use of teenage workers with the rationale that they offer young people entry-level work experience, teaching them both skills and responsibility. Despite the severe attacks, hundreds of millions of hungry customers eat fast food daily. The media constantly remind American consumers about its supposed evils. Most are conscious of the health risks from fatty, unctuous meals most realize that they are being served by a naughtily paid young worker and if they choose to ponder it, most are aware that the excessive packaging causes millions of tons of trash each year. only they continue to purchase and eat fast food on a regular basis. Fast food remains central to the American diet because it is inexpensive, quick, convenient, and predictable, and because it tastes good. Even more important, Americans eat fast food because it is now a cultural norm. As American culture homogenized and became distinctively American in the second half of the twentieth century, fast food, and especially the hamburger, emerged as the primary American ethnic food. Just as the Chinese eat rice and Mexicans eat tamales, Americans eat burgers. And fast food has grown even beyond being just a distinctive ethnic food.Since the 1960s, the concept has extended far beyond the food itself, with the term becoming a common descriptor for other quick-service operations, even a metaphor for many of the negative aspects of mainstream American life. Theorists and pundits sometimes use the term fast food to denigrate American habits, institutions, and values, referring to them as elements of a fast-food society. In fact, fast-food has become a frequently used adjective, implying not only ready availability but also superficiality, mass-produced standardization, lack of authenticity, or just poor quality.In the last two decades of the twentieth century, fast food gained additional economic and cultural significance, becoming a popular American export to nations near the world. Some detractors claim that it is even deliberately used by the United States, as a tool of cultural imperialism. The appearance of a McDonalds or Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant on the streets of a foreign city signals to many the demise of indigenous culture, replacing another artlesss traditional practices and values with American materialism.In fact, the rapid spread of American fast food is probably not an organized conspiracy, kinda more the result of aggressive corporate marketing strategies. Consumers in other countries are willing and able to buy fast-food products, so chains are quick to accommodate demand. Thought of around the world as American food, fast food continues its rapid international growth.Bibliography Boas, Max, and Steve Chain. Big Mac The unauthorized Story of McDonalds. New York Dutton, 1976. Emerson, Robert, L. Fast Food The Endl ess Shakeout. New York Lebhar-Friedman, 1979. Halberstam, David. The Fifties.New York Villard Books, 1993. Chapter 11 discusses the origins of the McDonalds empire. Hogan, David Gerard. Selling em by the Sack White Castle and the Creation of American Food. New York New York University Press, 1997. Jakle, John A. , and Keith A. Sculle. Fast Food Roadside Restaurants in the Automobile Age. Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. Langdon, Philip. Orange Roofs, Golden Arches The computer architecture of American Chain Restaurants. New York Knopf, 1986. McLamore, James, W. The Burger King Jim McLamore and the Building of an Empire. New York McGraw-Hill, 1998.Mariani, John. America Eats Out. New York William Morrow, 1991. Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. Boston and New York Houghton Mifflin, 2001. Tennyson, Jeffrey. Hamburger Heaven The Illustrated History of the Hamburger. New York Hyperion, 1993. Witzel, Michael Karl. The American Drive-I n History and Folklore of the Drive-In Restaurant in the Car Culture. Osceola, Wisc. Motorbooks International, 1994. David Gerard Hogan AMG AllGame study Fast FoodTop Home Library Entertainment & Arts Games Guide muster out Date 1989 Genre Action.Style Maze Random House pronounce Menu categories related to fast foodTop Home Library Literature & Language boy Menu Categories Random House Word Menu by Stephen Glazier For a list of words related to fast food, see cuisines, Meals, and Restaurants fast food cheap, mass-produced dishes served quickly at walk-in or drive-in outlets convenience food Wikipedia on Answers. com Fast foodTop Home Library Miscellaneous Wikipedia For other uses, see Fast food (disambiguation). A typical fast food meal in the United States includes a hamburger, french fries, and a soft drink.Pictured here are burgers from In-N-Out Burger McDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut fast food restaurants in the United Arab Emirates Fast food is the term given to food that can be prepared and served very quickly. While any meal with low preparation time can 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 for take-out/take-away. The term fast food was recognized in a dictionary by MerriamWebster in 1951.Outlets may be stands or kiosks, which may provide no shelter or seating,1 or fast food restaurants (also known as quick service restaurants). Franchise operations which are part of restaurant chains have standardized foodstuffs shipped to each restaurant from central locations. 2 Contents 1 History 1. 1 Pre-modern Europe 1. 2 United Kingdom 1. 3 United States 2 On the go 2. 1 Filling stations 2. 2 Street vendors and concessions 3 Cuisine 3. 1 Variants 4 Business 5 Employment 6 globalisation 7 Criticism 8 See also 9 References 10 Further reading 11 External links History.