fast food

INTRODUCTION
Fast food is food that can be prepared and served very quickly. While any meal with low preparation time can be considered to be fast food, such as TV dinners, typically the term refers to food which is cooked in bulk in advance, kept warm or reheated to order, and sold ready-to-eat from an outlet.

HISTORY
Typical interior of an Automat. This one was built in New York in 1930, at the height of their popularity.
The modern history of fast-food in the United States of America began on 7 July 1912 with the opening of a fast food restaurant called the Automat, a cafeteria with its prepared foods behind small glass windows and coin-operated slots, in New York City, created a sensation. Numerous Automat restaurants were quickly built around the country to deal with the demand. Automats remained extremely popular throughout the 1920s and 1930s. The company also popularized the notion of “take-out” food, with their slogan “Less work for Mother”. The American company White Castle is generally credited with opening the second fast-food outlet in Wichita, Kansas in 1921, selling hamburgers for five cents apiece. Among its innovations, the company allowed customers to see the food being prepared. White Castle later added five holes to each beef patty to increase its surface area and speed cooking times. White Castle was successful from its inception and spawned numerous competitors.
McDonald's, the largest fast-food chain in the world and the brand most associated with the term "fast food," was founded as a barbecue drive-in in 1940 by Dick and Mac McDonald. After discovering that most of their profits came from hamburgers, the brothers closed their restaurant for three months and reopened it in 1948 as a walk-up stand offering a simple menu of hamburgers, French fries, shakes, coffee, and Coca-Cola, served in disposable paper wrapping. As a result, they were able to produce hamburgers and fries constantly, without waiting for customer orders, and could serve them immediately; hamburgers cost 15 cents, about half the price at a typical diner. Their streamlined production method, which they named the "Speeder Service System”, was influenced by the production line innovations of Henry Ford. The McDonalds' stand was the milkshake machine company's biggest customer and a milkshake salesman named Ray Kroc travelled to California to discover the secret to their high-volume burger-and-shake operation. Kroc thought he could expand their concept, eventually buying the McDonalds' operation outright in 1961 with the goal of making cheap, ready-to-go hamburgers, French fries and milkshakes a nationwide business.
Kroc was the mastermind behind the rise of McDonald's as a national chain. The first part of his plan was to promote cleanliness in his restaurants. Kroc often took part at his own Des Plaines, Illinois, outlet by hosing down the garbage cans and scraping gum off the cement. Kroc also added great swaths of glass which enabled the customer to view the food preparation. This was very important to the American public which became quite germ conscious. A clean atmosphere was only part of Kroc's grander plan which separated McDonald's from the rest of the competition and attributes to their great success. Kroc envisioned making his restaurants appeal to families of suburbs.
Service

Fast-food outlets are take-away or take-out providers, often with a "drive-thru" service which allows customers to order and pick up food from their cars; but most also have a seating area in which customers can eat the food on the premises.
Nearly from its inception, fast food has been designed to be eaten "on the go" and often does not require traditional cutlery and is eaten as a finger food. Common menu items at fast food outlets include fish and chips, sandwiches, pitas, hamburgers, fried chicken, French fries, chicken nuggets, tacos, pizza, and ice cream, although many fast-food restaurants offer "slower" foods like chili, mashed potatoes, and salads.
Traditional retail outlets many petrol/gas stations have convenience stores which sell pre-packed sandwiches, donuts, and hot food. Many gas stations in the United States also sell frozen foods and have microwaves on the premises in which to prepare them.
Supermarkets often include their own cafes with prepared food service counters. Many markets prepare baked or rotisserie chickens due to the low cost of fowl and ease of preparation. Some, like ASDA and Wal-Mart may even include a well-known fast food chain within their own store, such as McDonald's or Subway.
Street vendors and concessions

Chinese takeaways are particularly popular. They normally offer a wide variety of Asian food (not always Chinese), which has normally been fried. Food is often available as a smorgasbord, sometimes self-service. The customer chooses the size of the container they wish to buy, and then is free to fill it with their choice of food. It is common to combine several options in one container. Most options are some form of noodles, rice, or meat.
Sushi has seen rapidly rising popularity in recent times. A form of fast food created in Japan (where open to is the Japanese equivalent of fast food), sushi is normally cold sticky rice served with raw fish. The most popular kind in the West is rolls of rice in nor (dried seaweed), with filling. The filling often includes fish, chicken or cucumber.
The Subway chain has had a major impact on the fast food industry, by showing that food can be mass produced in the American manner without compromising taste or nutritional value. Consequently Subway has marketed itself as a healthy alternative to other fast food chains, and has been largely successful in this. Many other chains (especially McDonalds) have altered their menus to include healthier options in order to prevent loss of customers.
Fast-food chains have come under fire from consumer groups (such as the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a longtime fast-food critic) over the past decade. Some of the concerns have led to the rise of the Slow Food movement. This movement seeks to preserve local cuisines and ingredients, and directly opposes laws and habits that favor fast-food choices. Among other things, it strives to educate consumers' palates to prefer what it considers richer, more varied and more nourishing tastes of fresh local ingredients harvested in season.



CONCLUSION

"(Fast-food restaurants) makes good-tasting, affordable food, but unfortunately, it lacks nutrition," said the slim and fit Rivera


References

http://www.newstarget.com/019624.html
www.faqs.org/.../Popular-Culture-Food-and.html