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A take-out or takeout (U.S., Canada, and the Philippines); carry-out or to-go (Scotland and some dialects in the U.S. and Canada); takeaway (England, Wales, Australia, Lebanon, South Africa, Northern Ireland, Ireland, and occasionally in North America); takeaways ( India, New Zealand); grab-n-go; and parcel (Bangladesh, and Pakistan) is a prepared meal or other food items, purchased at a restaurant or
fast food Fast food is a type of mass-produced food designed for commercial resale, with a strong priority placed on speed of service. It is a commercial term, limited to food sold in a restaurant or store with frozen, preheated or precooked ingredien ...
outlet with the intent to eat elsewhere. A concept found in many ancient cultures, take-out food is common worldwide, with a number of different cuisines and dishes on offer.


History

The concept of prepared meals to be eaten elsewhere dates back to antiquity. Market and roadside stalls selling food were common in Ancient Greece and Rome. In
Pompeii Pompeii (, ) was an ancient city located in what is now the ''comune'' of Pompei near Naples in the Campania region of Italy. Pompeii, along with Herculaneum and many villas in the surrounding area (e.g. at Boscoreale, Stabiae), was buried ...
, archaeologists have found a number of ''
thermopolia In the ancient Greco-Roman world, a thermopolium (plural ''thermopolia''), from Greek (''thermopōlion''), i.e. cook-shop, literally "a place where (something) hot is sold", was a commercial establishment where it was possible to purchase ready- ...
'', service counters opening onto the street which provided food to be taken away. There is a distinct lack of formal dining and kitchen area in Pompeian homes, which may suggest that eating, or at least cooking, at home was unusual. Over 200 ''thermopolia'' have been found in the ruins of Pompeii. In the cities of medieval Europe a number of street vendors sold take-out food. In medieval London, street vendors sold hot meat
pie A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit (as in an apple pie), nuts ( pecan pie), brown sugar ( sugar pie), swe ...
s, geese, sheep's feet and French wine, while in Paris roasted
meat Meat is animal flesh that is eaten as food. Humans have hunted, farmed, and scavenged animals for meat since prehistoric times. The establishment of settlements in the Neolithic Revolution allowed the domestication of animals such as chic ...
s,
squab In culinary terminology, squab is an immature domestic pigeon, typically under four weeks old, or its meat. The meat is widely described as tastes like chicken, tasting like dark chicken. The term is probably of Scandinavian origin; the Swedish w ...
, tarts and
flan Flan may refer to: *Flan (pie), an open sweet or savoury tart, the most common UK meaning *Flan cake, a Filipino cake topped with crème caramel and caramel syrup *Flan de leche or ''crème caramel'', a custard dessert with clear caramel sauce, th ...
s,
cheese Cheese is a dairy product produced in wide ranges of flavors, textures, and forms by coagulation of the milk protein casein. It comprises proteins and fat from milk, usually the milk of cows, buffalo, goats, or sheep. During production, ...
s and eggs were available. A large strata of society would have purchased food from these vendors, but they were especially popular amongst the urban poor, who would have lacked kitchen facilities in which to prepare their own food. However, these vendors often had a bad reputation, often being in trouble with
city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...
authorities reprimanding them for selling infected meat or reheated food. The cooks of Norwich often defended themselves in court against selling such things as " pokky pies" and "stynkyng mackerelles". In 10th and 11th century
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
, citizens of cities such as Kaifeng and Hangzhou were able to buy pastries such as '' yuebing'' and '' congyoubing'' to take away. By the early 13th century, the two most successful such shops in Kaifeng had "upwards of fifty ovens". A traveling Florentine reported in the late 14th century that in Cairo, people 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 Renaissance Turkey, many crossroads saw vendors selling "fragrant bites of hot meat", including chicken and lamb that had been spit roasted. 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 Rabbits, also known as bunnies or bunny rabbits, are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also contains the hares) of the order Lagomorpha (which also contains the pikas). ''Oryctolagus cuniculus'' includes the European rabbit speci ...
, gopher, frog, and fish, fruit, eggs, and maize flowers), as well as insects and stews. After Spanish colonization of Peru and importation of European food stocks including wheat,
sugarcane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of (often hybrid) tall, Perennial plant, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar Sugar industry, production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with ...
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 are still remembered today. During the American colonial period, street vendors sold "pepper pot soup" (tripe) "oysters, roasted corn ears, fruit and sweets," with oysters being a low-priced commodity until the 1910s when overfishing caused prices to rise. In 1707, after previous restrictions that had limited their operating hours, street food vendors had been banned in New York City. Many women of African descent made their living selling street foods in America in the 18th and 19th centuries; with products ranging from fruit, cakes and nuts in Savannah, Georgia, to coffee, biscuits, pralines and other sweets in New Orleans. In the 19th century, street food vendors in Transylvania sold gingerbread-nuts, cream mixed with corn, and bacon and other meat fried on tops of ceramic vessels with hot coals inside. The Industrial Revolution saw an increase in the availability of take-out food. By the early 20th Century,
fish and chips Fish and chips is a popular hot dish consisting of fried fish in crispy batter, served with chips. The dish originated in England, where these two components had been introduced from separate immigrant cultures; it is not known who created t ...
was considered an "established institution" in Britain. The hamburger was introduced to America around this time. The diets of industrial workers were often poor, and these meals provided an "important component" to their nutrition. In India, local businesses and cooperatives, had begun to supply workers in the city of Bombay (now Mumbai) with tiffin boxes by the end of the 19th century. The COVID-19 pandemic led to many restaurants closing their indoor dining spaces and only offering take-out.


Business operation

Take-out food can be purchased from restaurants that also provide sit-down table service or from establishments specialising in food to be taken away. Providing a take-out service saves operators the cost of cutlery, crockery and pay for servers and hosts; it also allows many customers to be served quickly, without restricting sales by remaining to eat their food.


Street food

Although once popular in Europe and America, street food declined in popularity in the 20th century. In part, this can be attributed to a combination of the proliferation of specialized takeaway restaurants and legislation relating to health and safety. Vendors selling street food are still common in parts of Asia, Africa and the Middle East, with the annual turnover of street food vendors in Bangladesh and Thailand being described as particularly important to the local economy.


Drive-through

Many restaurants and take-out establishments offer
drive-through A drive-through or drive-thru (a sensational spelling of the word ''through''), is a type of take-out service provided by a business that allows customers to purchase products without leaving their cars. The format was pioneered in the United ...
or ''drive-thru'' outlets that allow customers to order, pay for, and receive food without leaving their cars. The idea was pioneered in 1931 in a California
fast food Fast food is a type of mass-produced food designed for commercial resale, with a strong priority placed on speed of service. It is a commercial term, limited to food sold in a restaurant or store with frozen, preheated or precooked ingredien ...
restaurant, ''Pig Stand Number 21''. By 1988, 51% of McDonald's turnover was being generated by drive-throughs, with 31% of all US take-out turnover being generated by them by 1990.


Food delivery

Some take-out businesses offer prepared food for delivery, which usually involves contacting a local restaurant by telephone or online. In countries including Australia, Canada, India, Brazil, Japan, much of the European Union and the United States, food can be ordered online from a menu, then picked up by the customer or delivered by the restaurant or a third party delivery service. The industry has kept pace with technological developments since the 1980s, beginning with the rise of the personal computer and continuing with the rise of mobile devices and online delivery applications. Specialized computer software for food delivery helps determine the most efficient routes for carriers, track order and delivery times, manage calls and orders with
PoS POS, Pos or PoS may refer to: Linguistics * Part of speech, the role that a word or phrase plays in a sentence * Poverty of the stimulus, a linguistic term used in language acquisition and development * Sayula Popoluca (ISO 639-3), an indigenous l ...
software, and other functions. Since 2008 satellite navigation tracking technology has been used for real-time monitoring of delivery vehicles by customers over the Internet. A restaurant can either maintain its own delivery personnel or use third parties who contract with restaurants to not only deliver food orders but also assist in marketing and providing order-taking technology. The field has seen rapid growth since the late 2000s with the spread of the smart phones and apps enabling customers to order from their mobile devices. According to a study cited the ''New York Times'', as of 2019, three companies account for nearly 80 percent of the US restaurant food delivery market: GrubHub, Uber Eats and DoorDash. Competition for market share has been fierce, with smaller competitors either being bought out or closing down.
Amazon Restaurants Prime Now, LLC is a subsidiary of Amazon that oversees its same-day grocery shopping and delivery service. The name also originated a brand, including a custom app, to distinguish the service from Amazon's other offerings, but both the branding a ...
announced in June 2019 that it was closing its restaurant food delivery service to concentrate on grocery delivery. Some businesses offer a guarantee to deliver within a predetermined period of time, with late deliveries not charged for. For example, Domino's Pizza had a commercial campaign in the 1980s and early 1990s for its pizza delivery service which promised "30 minutes or it's free". This was discontinued in the United States in 1993 due to the number of lawsuits arising from accidents caused by hurried delivery drivers.


Packaging

Take-out food is packaged in paper,
paperboard Paperboard is a thick paper-based material. While there is no rigid differentiation between paper and paperboard, paperboard is generally thicker (usually over 0.30 mm, 0.012 in, or 12 Inch#equivalences, points) than paper and has certain ...
,
corrugated fiberboard Corrugated fiberboard or corrugated cardboard is a type of packaging material consisting of a fluted corrugated sheet and one or two flat linerboards. It is made on "flute lamination machines" or "corrugators" and is used for making corrugated ...
, plastic, or foam food containers. One common container is the oyster pail, a folded, waxed or plastic coated, paperboard container. The oyster pail was quickly adopted, especially in the West, for "Chinese takeout". In Britain old newspapers were traditionally used for wrapping fish and chips until this was banned for health reasons in the 1980s. Many people are nostalgic for this traditional wrapping; some modern fish and chip shops wrap their food in faux-newspaper, food-safe paper printed to look like a newspaper. Corrugated fiberboard and foam containers are to some extent self- insulating, and can be used for other foods. Thermal bags and other insulated shipping containers keep food hot (or cold) more effectively for longer. Aluminium containers are also popular for take-out packaging due to their low cost.
Expanded polystyrene Polystyrene (PS) is a synthetic polymer made from monomers of the aromatic hydrocarbon styrene. Polystyrene can be solid or foamed. General-purpose polystyrene is clear, hard, and brittle. It is an inexpensive resin per unit weight. It is a ...
is often used for hot drinks containers and food trays because it is lightweight and heat-insulating. All types of container can be produced with supplier information and design to create a brand identity. Pizza Toscana in box.JPG, Pizza served in a cardboard box. File:Oysterpail.jpg , Boiled rice served in an oyster pail. File:Take-out nasi kuning.JPG, Leaf-wrapped rice dish ( nasi kuning) File:McDonald's Meal Japan.jpg, Paper-wrapped food carrying McDonald's food; including Chicken McNuggets, fries, burger, and drink File:Thai Soup Take-away.JPG, Take-out food in Thailand is often packaged in plastic bags File:Orizume bentō SETSUGEKKA served by Ningyocho Imahan Co,. Ltd. 01.jpg, Orizume bento File:First tiffin lunch.jpg, Tiffin carrier or dabba File:Chinese restaurant counter Northside Chicago.jpg, Chinese restaurant counter in a Northside Chicago neighborhood


Disposable serviceware waste

Packaging Packaging is the science, art and technology of enclosing or protecting products for distribution, storage, sale, and use. Packaging also refers to the process of designing, evaluating, and producing packages. Packaging can be described as a co ...
of fast food and take-out food is necessary for the customer but involves a significant amount of material that ends up in landfills, recycling, composting, or litter. Foam containers for fast-food were the target of environmentalists in the U.S. and were largely replaced with paper wrappers among large restaurant chains. In 2002, Taiwan began taking action to reduce the use of disposable tableware at institutions and businesses, and to reduce the use of plastic bags. Yearly, the nation of 17.7 million people was producing 59,000 tons of disposable tableware waste and 105,000 tons of waste plastic bags, and increasing measures have been taken in the years since then to reduce the amount of waste. In 2013, Taiwan's Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) banned outright the use of disposable tableware in the nation's 968 schools, government agencies, and hospitals. The ban is expected to eliminate 2,600 metric tons of waste yearly. In Germany, Austria, and
Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
, laws banning the use of disposable food and drink containers at large-scale events have been enacted. Such a ban has been in place in Munich, Germany since 1991, applying to all city facilities and events. This includes events of all sizes, including very large ones (Christmas market, Auer-Dult Faire, Oktoberfest and Munich City Marathon). For small events of a few hundred people, the city has arranged for a corporation to offer rental of crockery and dishwasher equipment. In part through this regulation, Munich reduced the waste generated by Oktoberfest, which attracts millions of people, from 11,000 metric tons in 1990 to 550 tons in 1999. China, by virtue of the size of its population and the surging popularity of food delivery apps, such as Meituan and Ele.me, faces significant challenges disposing of or recycling takeout food
packaging waste Packaging waste, the part of the waste that consists of packaging and packaging material, is a major part of the total global waste, and the major part of the packaging waste consists of single-use plastic food packaging, a hallmark of throwaway ...
. According to a 2018 study published in ''Resources, Conservation and Recycling'', for the first half of 2017, Chinese consumers ordered 4.6 billion takeout meals, generating "significant environmental concerns". The study's authors estimated that packaging waste from food delivery grew from 20,000 metric tons in 2015 to 1.5 million metric tons in 2017. In 2018, Meituan reported making over 6.4 billion food deliveries, up from 4 billion a year earlier. Because takeout and delivery meals in China include single-use chopsticks, which are made from wood or bamboo, the growth in food delivery also has an impact on China's forests. China produces about 80 billion pairs of single-use
chopsticks Chopsticks ( or ; Pinyin: ''kuaizi'' or ''zhu'') are shaped pairs of equal-length sticks of China, Chinese origin that have been used as Kitchen utensil, kitchen and List of eating utensils, eating utensils in most of East Asia, East and Southe ...
yearly, the equivalent of 20 million 20-year-old trees. About 45 percent are made from trees – mainly cottonwood, birch, and spruce, the remainder being made from bamboo.
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
uses about 24 billion pairs of these disposables per year, and globally about 80 billion pairs are thrown away by an estimated 1.4 billion people. In 2013 in Japan, one pair of disposable chopsticks cost 0.02 United States dollars. One pair of reusable chopsticks cost 1.17 USD, and each pair could be used 130 times. 1.17 USD per pair / 130 uses = 0.009 USD per use, over two times less than disposable. Campaigns in several countries to reduce this waste are beginning to have some effect.Ecopedia. 2013
How Wooden Chopsticks Are Killing Nature
By Alastair Shaw.


See also

*
Condiment sachet A packet is a small bag or pouch, made from paper, Aluminium foil, foil, plastic film or another type of Packaging and labeling, packing material, often used to contain disposable product, single-use quantities of foods or consumer goods such a ...
* Leftovers * Oyster pail, a type of paper container from America that later became used with Chinese American cuisine * Pizza delivery * Street food


References


External links

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