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Many tourists shy away from eating street food because of its association with various digestive disorders, known variously as „MontezumaÊs revenge,‰ „Delhi belly,‰ or simply „travelerÊs diarrhea.‰ These are caused by bacterial contamina-tion, especially from Shigella sonnei and Escherichia coli. Food is susceptible to contamination at all stages of the food chain. Factors causing contamination include poor food preparation and handling practices, inadequate storage facilities, expo-sure to flies and rodents, vendorsÊ lack of personal hygiene, and lack of adequate sanitation and garbage disposal facilities.

One of the most critical problems for vendors is the supply of water of accept-able quality and in sufficient quantities for drinking washing, cleaning, and other operations. In tropical countries with high ambient temperatures and humidity, the problems are intensified, especially if the ingredients or the dishes are kept a room

Eight Tastiest Street Foods in Europe

1. St. Petersburg: Fried pirozhki 2. Amsterdam: Kroketten 3. Berlin: Currywurst 4. Bruges: Frites 5. Florence: Gelato 6. Paris: Crepes 7. Rome: Pizza al taglio

8. Stockholm: Fried herring sandwich

Tom Meyers, “The Blog,” Huffington Post, September 13, 2010 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

tom-meyers/the-8-tastiest-street-foo_b_714856.html#s139260&title=Stockholm_Fried_

Herring

Introduction | xxix temperature for a long period of time, which turns it into an excellent culture broth in which bacteria thrive. One of the most effective ways of killing dangerous mi-croorganisms is by proper cooking. Serving at or reheating food to 160°F (71°C) may eliminate many of the bacteria.

Because street food plays such an important role in the eating patterns of people in many developing countries, international organizations have been working to develop guidelines for its production and regulation. The two most prominent are the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO), both divisions of the United Nations. In 1988, FAO held the worldÊs first expert consultation on street foods in Jakarta, Indonesia, and since then has held many conferences and programs to improve the quality of street food in Africa, Asia, and Latin America by training vendors, teachers, and inspectors in good hy-giene and manufacturing practices.

Based on studies in many different countries, FAO has developed the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) method, which uses checklists to identify the hazards at every critical point in the food chain and establish priorities for intervention and control. These critical points vary by product. For example, the main source of hazard for stewed chicken in China was microbial contamination after cooking, whereas for various street foods sold in Kolkata, the main source of contamination was the water used at various stages in the process. WHO and FAO created a document that instructed governments on how to conduct the HACCP analysis.

The WHOÊs Codex Alimentarius Commission and its subsidiary bodies prepared and in some regions adopted a Code of Hygienic Practice for the Preparation and Sale of Street-vended Foods and published a report on essential safety requirements for street-vended foods. WHO has issued A Guide on Safe Food for Travelers to ensure the prevention of foodborne diseases at such events as the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa and the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The pamphlet has been trans-lated into French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Croatian, Portuguese, and Arabic and is handed out at some international airports.

WHO’s Five Keys to Safer Food

1. Wash your hands often and always before handling and consuming food.

2. Make sure your food has been thoroughly cooked and remains steaming hot.

Avoid raw seafood, poultry meat that is still red or has pink juiced, and rare minced meat.

3. Make sure that cooked food is not in contact with raw food that could con-taminate it and any uncooked food: exceptions are fruits and vegetables that can be peeled or shelled. However, avoid any fruits and vegetables that have damaged skin.

xxx | Introduction

4. Avoid cooked food that has been held at room temperature for several hours, which means avoiding foods from street vendors if they are not kept hot or refrigerated or on ice.

5. If available, drink bottled water but always check the seal to ensure it has not been tampered with. When the safety of drinking water is doubt-ful, bring it to a vigorous boil. Other bottled beverages are usually safe to drink.

Regulations

Street-food regulations vary widely among countries and even among cities within the same country. Some entities have adopted legislation or ordinances to regu-late the preparation and sale of food, others have no regulations at all, while in others, the regulations may exist but are not enforced or enforced haphazardly because of indifference or a shortage of inspectors. In some countries, street-food vendors have no legal status, which makes them vulnerable to harassment by of-ficials. In others, licensing is required and enforced. In Singapore, for example, all vendors are licensed, and every vendor is required to be vaccinated against typhoid. North American and European countries all require and enforce regular health inspections.

Although the main purpose of regulations is to promote health and safety, often other factors come into play, such as opposition by the owners of brick-and-mortar restaurants who fear the competition and by real estate interests who want to use the valuable urban space occupied by vendors. One common rule is that no mobile food vehicle can be within 200 feet of a fixed restaurant. There are also concerns about vehicle and pedestrian traffic congestion. Moreover, street food is becoming an important tourist attraction throughout the world, but since some tourists may be squeamish about buying food from the street, cities have created food courts with clean facilities and tables and chairs.

Vendors usually look at regulations as onerous because they restrict their ability to make a living. Most street vendors stand at the bottom of the economic scale, so every dollar makes a big difference in their lives. In such cities as New York, where a cart is allowed to operate can make the difference in a vendorÊs income, and there is competition for the best spots that the police will allow. Street vendors have formed organization in cities across North America, from Toronto to New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles under the banner of social justice for the small entre-preneur and working people. They have been effective in changing some laws and certainly public attitudes toward street food. In India, street vendors have formed the Street Vendors Association of India to protect their interests, make available information about best practices and legal issues, and find „long-lasting and sus-tainable solutions to the problems faced by street vendors.‰

Introduction | xxxi

Rules and regulations governing street food focus on several aspects:

Ć Authorization and/or licensing to conduct the production and sale of street food

Ć Composition and presentation of food products Ć Offenses and penalties

Ć Institutions and officials responsible for food surveillance and control

One approach has been to move vendors off the streets into sanitary·some would say sanitized·food courts with seating facilities, clean water, disposal, and other amenities. The entrepreneurs are registered and have premises allocated with ac-cess to telephone, water, and electricity and trained in community health practices.

This has occurred in many Asian cities, including Singapore, Bangkok, Guang-dong, Jakarta, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. In other cities including Quito, Ecua-dor, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, and Cebu City in the Philippines, urban authorities have developed programs to improve food quality and safety and find appropriate locations.

Elsewhere, there has been a more halfhearted effort. In India, many cities had restrictions on street-food vendors, but they were not enforced either through ne-glect or corruption in the form of bribes to the police. In 2007, prior to the Asian Games, the Delhi city government tried to enforce existing legislation by banning the preparation of food at street stands, a move supported by IndiaÊs High Court.

However, the order proved unenforceable and has not been implemented.

In North America, some cities, notably Chicago, Toronto, and Montreal, have stringent regulations on food trucks and street vendors, whereas others, notably Seattle, Washington, Portland, Oregon, and Austin, Texas, are famous for their bustling food truck scenes.

Despite, or maybe because of, regulations and modernization in cities and coun-tries across the globe, street food is among the fastest growing food induscoun-tries. Peo-ple want inexpensive meals and snacks made by cooks who use fresh ingredients to make delectable and sometime hearty dishes. In the underdeveloped world, street food is a necessity. In the developed world, sampling dishes from varieties of cu-linary traditions that use locally sourced ingredients provides gustatory adventures that are hard to replicate in restaurants or at home. Perhaps more than anything else, street food gives people a sense of community·among sellers and buyers in the open air among crowds·that is hard to replicate anywhere else. In cities every-where, street food is at the core of peoplesÊ common existence and identity.

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Afghanistan

The diversity of AfghanistanÊs climate, geography, ethnicity, and agriculture has given rise to a rich and varied street-food culture. A landlocked country, Afghani-stan is situated at the crossroads of four major cultural areas: the Middle East, Cen-tral Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and the Far East. Afghanistan played a vital role linking East and West along the ancient Silk Road, where ideas, religion, trade, foods, and plants were exchanged.

Afghanistan, one of the poorest countries in the world, has had a turbulent his-tory, which continues to the present day. It has an estimated population of between 28 and 33 million, including 4 million in the capital Kabul. The population is a mosaic of ethnic groups, the main ones being Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, Turk-men, and Baloch. While the majority (99%) are Muslims, there are small pockets of Hindus and Sikhs. Many Afghans who fled to Iran, Pakistan, and India during the Soviet occupation and the subsequent Taliban era have returned home and brought back new dishes and ways of cooking.

Afghans love to snack, especially on outings, picnics, special holidays, and feast days or on their way home from work. Despite the ongoing security situation, chai-khana , kebab stalls, food stalls, and street vendors are still doing a thriving trade.

The food is always prepared and sold by men.

Chaikhana (teahouses), located throughout the country, are establishments where weary travelers can be refreshed after long and dusty journeys. Chaikhana are also meeting places where local men meet to exchange gossip and news over tea from a constantly boiling samovar. Some serve such simple food as the tradi-tional teapot soup ( sherwa-e-chainaki ), a preparation of lamb, onions, and cilantro simmered in a teapot.

Kebab stalls can be found in the major towns and cities. Charikar, a town north of Kabul, is famous for its sikh kebab , while Jalalabad in the east is known for its chapli kebab . Kebab stalls ( dukan-e-kebabi ) are very basic. Some have rickety chairs and tables and they sell soft drinks, and some are attached or next door to a chaikhana , while others are just a stall where customers eat the tasty, succulent ke-babs standing around the stall or walking along the street. The kebabi (stallholder) stands behind his manqal (charcoal brazier), wafting his pakka (kebab fan) over the coals to keep them glowing and turning the skewered kebabs over from time to

2 | Afghanistan

time. He often has an assistant, usually a young boy learning the trade, who fans the charcoal from the front.

All the major cities (Kabul, Herat, Mazar-i-Sharif, Kunduz, Kandahar, Jalalabad) and some small towns have food stalls and street vendors. They position themselves outside schools, shopping centers, cinemas, government buildings (although not recently because of the potential of suicide bombers), and in parks and bazaars, such as KabulÊs Mandawi food market. Street-food stalls can also be found at popular picnic spots and religious sites and shrines.

The old-style street vendors, called tabang wala , have very basic equipment.

They carry their wares on a large, flat, round wooden tray ( tabang ) and stake their claim to a particular street corner or patch. In recent years, the old-style tabang wala have been disappearing. Today, most street vendors have a more elaborate and better equipped mobile kiosk on wheels with a canopy and usually facilities for frying food on the spot. The type of food sold often depends on the region and the time of the year. A traditional street food is shour nakhod , chickpeas doused with a mint and vinegar dressing and served with vibrantly colored chutneys. The same dressing and chutneys are also an accompaniment to cooked red kidney beans or boiled sliced potatoes.

A recent development is chaat , a combination of boiled potatoes, kidney beans, and chickpeas sprinkled with pomegranate seeds and chaat spice powder, intro-duced by refugees returning to Afghanistan from Pakistan and India. Other snacks are sambosa , stuffed pastries, similar to Indian samosas, with a minced meat and pea filling subtly spiced with cumin and cilantro and a little chopped green chili, and pakora, made from such vegetables as sliced par-boiled potatoes, cauliflower sprigs, onion rings, or sliced eggplants dipped into a chickpea flour batter and deep-fried. They are usually served with a mint or coriander chutney. Corn on the cob is roasted over a charcoal brazier and sprinkled with salt. Noodle dishes such as mantu and aush are also popular.

Street vendors are particularly active on such religious or festive days as Eid or Nauroz (the Persian/Afghan New Year on the first day of spring) when chil-dren and grown-ups go out for picnics or fly their kites. In the crisp spring air, people enjoy a plateful of steaming hot and spicy pilau-e-tolaki , or „weighed‰

pilau , so called because the tabang wala weighs out the pilau on scales, using stones that weigh one-quarter or half a pound. Pilau is rice cooked in stock with meat or vegetables with spices added and, in Afghanistan, often garnished with carrots, nuts, and raisins. Children buy roasted chickpeas, pine nuts, raisins, or sugared almonds served in cone-shaped paper bags. Khasta-e-shireen is a kind of nut brittle made by pouring caramel over almond or apricot kernels and formed in large, round plate-like shapes. Other sweet treats include halwa-e-swanak , a nut brittle made with pistachios or walnuts. Halwa-e-marghzi is a rather odd-looking sweet, made with a milk, sugar, and walnut syrup. It is very

Afghanistan | 3 viscous and is stretched and shaken in the air from a wooden pole until it sets hard.

Another common sight in the bazaars in spring is kishmish panir ·balls of white cheese, known as panir-e-khom , displayed on a bed of green vine leaves. The fresh cheese, brought to the market by people from the mountains or outlying districts, is sold with red raisins ( kishmish surkh ).

In summer and autumn, kishmish ab , made of raisins soaked in water and served in a small bowl or glass, makes a refreshing drink. Khakshir is an herbal drink made from the seeds of Sisymbrium irio , also known as London rocket. The seeds are soaked in water with sugar for a few hours and then drunk, preferably over ice.

Khakshir has long been valued as a medicine, especially for asthma and detoxifying the liver, but today it is sold by street vendors as a refreshment. Juices and sherbets are made from such fruits or vegetables as carrots, pomegranates, and cherries.

Ab-e-kista is a juice made from dried apricots with the stone removed reconstituted in water. Gholeng is a similar drink made with a smaller variety of apricot, but the stone is not removed. Ab-e-zafaran is made by adding water to saffron with a little sugar. Lemon juice is also popular and is sweetened with sugar or sometimes salt.

A juice is also made from sugarcane.

Such fruits as mango and banana are made into a kind of milk shake or smoothie.

The fruit is whizzed up in a processor with almonds and milk or yogurt. Other pop-ular drinks are dogh (a yoghurt drink flavored with mint and often with grated or small pieces of cucumber) similar to the ayran of the Middle East. Summer is also the time for sheer yakh (ice cream) or faluda.

During Jeshyn, an autumn festival celebrating Afghan independence, street ven-dors sell the snacks described earlier as well as such seasonal fruits as slices of melon and watermelon, grapes, peaches, and nectarines.

Specialty food shops or permanent stalls serve specific dishes. In winter, hal-eem (a cereal and meat porridge served with melted ghee or oil and sprinkled with ground cinnamon, cardamom, and sugar) is bought by men early in the morning, especially on Fridays after going to the hamam (public baths). They take it home to their families for breakfast. Sherwa-e-cala pacha is another „takeaway‰ break-fast dish, a hearty and warming soup made from sheepÊs head and feet. Cala pilau , a rice dish made with the head of a sheep, is another popular takeaway. Winter is also the time for deep-fried local and imported fish and jelabi , an unusual combi-nation . Jelabi is a sweet composed of whorls of batter, deep-fried and soaked in syrup.

Food hygiene and safety are a major concern for anyone eating outside the home.

Despite the existence of a Department of Hygiene in the Ministry of Health, food hygiene is fairly basic, and one eats street food at oneÊs own risk. The cleanliness of some of the implements and serving plates is often doubtful. Food served on naan or on paper plates poses less risk. Stomach problems and illnesses are endemic

4 | Afghanistan

in Afghanistan. However, any food that is fried at a high temperature and served immediately is less risky than food that has been prepared earlier.

Major Street Foods