THE PA MELTING POT - Part 4 - How Ethnic Foods Survived Through Early Mobility - The Kiosk

The kiosk (from Turkish: köşk) was a small, separated garden pavilion open on some or all sides. Kiosks were common in Persia, the Indian subcontinent, and in the Ottoman Empire from the 13th century onward.  SEE PHOTOS OF KIOSKS BELOW. 

Since ancient times, street food vendors have sold foods from kiosks such as in ancient Greece where small fried fish were a street food. Street food was widely consumed by poor urban residents of ancient Rome whose tenement homes did not have ovens or hearths with chickpea soup being one of the common meals along with bread and grain paste. In ancient China, where street foods generally catered to the poor, wealthy residents would send servants to buy street foods and bring meals back for their masters to eat in their homes.

A traveling Italian from Florence reported in the late 1300s that in Cairo, Egyptians 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. In Turkey many crossroads saw vendors selling “fragrant bites of hot meat” including chicken and lamb that had been spit roasted (kebabs).

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) and stews.

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. Some of Lima’s 19th century street vendors such as “Erasmo, the ‘negro’ sango vendor” and “Na Aguedita” (who wrapped herself in woven scarves and dished out foods from stone pots in Lima’s open streets) are still remembered today.

Street foods in Victorian London included tripe, pea soup, pea pods in butter, whelk (snails), prawns and jellied eels. During the American Colonial period, street vendors sold “pepper pot soup, oysters, roasted corn ears, fruit and sweets.”  Many women of African descent made their living selling street foods in early America with products ranging from fruit, cakes and nuts in Savannah, to coffee, biscuits, pralines and other sweets in New Orleans.

The wide-spread ethnicity of western Pennsylvania is truly displayed in The Strip District of Pittsburgh. In the 1900s, there were several street vendors who used immigrant workers to unload the delivery trucks which contained fish, meats, fruits, vegetables and other food items to put on display for sale.

The hungry immigrant workers and truck drivers needed to be fed. One business that morphed from a kiosk to a diner is Primanti’s founded by the Primanti brothers in 1933. The famous take-away sandwich (a meal all by itself) included choice of meat, cheese, tart and crunchy coleslaw and French fries on Italian bread, and was a perfect one-stop shop for the workers.

There are ethnic shops today in the district and The Pittsburgh Public Market continues the tradition of stands, cards, kiosks and the like fill with ethnic foods and goods.

For recipes from 1700s to 1960s and modern day links versions, visit www.ThePAMeltingPot.com.

Christine Willard, a native of western Pennsylvania, researches and blogs about the food unique to western Pennsylvania. She currently resides in North Carolina. Her blog can be found at www.ThePAMeltingPot.com.