Food Hawkers: Selling in the Streets from Antiquity to the Present (The History of Retailing and Consumption)

271 Pages·2016·47.786 MB·English

by  Melissa Calaresu (editor), Danielle van den Heuvel (editor)

Food Hawkers

Street vendors are ubiquitous across the world and throughout history. They
are part of almost any distribution chain, and play an important role in the
marketing of consumer goods particularly to poorer customers. Focusing on
the food trades, this multi-disciplinary volume explores the dynamics of street
selling and its impact on society. Through an investigation of food hawking,
the volume both showcases the latest results from a subject that has seen the
emergence of a significant body of innovative and adventurous scholarship,
and advances the understanding of street vending and its impact on society by
stimulating interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary discussions. Covering a time
span of approximately two millennia, from antiquity to the present, the book
includes chapters on Europe and Asia, and covers a diverse range of themes
such as the identity of food sellers (in terms of gender, ethnicity, and social
status); the role of the street seller in the distribution of food; the marketing of
food; food traders and the establishment; the representation of food hawkers;
and street traders and economic development. By taking a dynamic approach,
the collection has enabled its contributors to cross disciplinary boundaries and
engage in discussions which extend beyond the limits of their own academic
fields, and thus provide a fresh appreciation of this ancient phenomenon.
Dr Melissa Calaresu teaches early modern European history at Gonville and
Caius College, Cambridge, and has written on the Grand Tour, historical
and autobiographical writing, urban space, reform to revolution, and most
recently, the making and eating of ice cream in eighteenth-century Naples.
She is co-editor of Exploring Cultural History: Essays in Honour of Peter
Burke (2010), New Approaches to Naples c.1500–c.1800: The Power of Place
(2013), and the catalogue for the Fitzwilliam Museum exhibition, Treasured
Possessions from the Renaissance to Enlightenment (2015).
Danielle van den Heuvel is Senior Lecturer in early modern European history
at the University of Kent. Her publications include the award-winning Women
and Entrepreneurship. Female traders in the Northern Netherlands, 1580–1815
(2007), and cover retailing, food markets, and informality in the context of
the Dutch Republic and beyond.
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Food Hawkers

Selling in the streets from
antiquity to the present
Edited by
Melissa Calaresu and
Danielle van den Heuvel
First published 2016
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2016 selection and editorial matter, Melissa Calaresu and Danielle van den
Heuvel; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Melissa Calaresu and Danielle van den Heuvel to be identified as the
authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters,
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter

invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage
or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without
intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
Names: Calaresu, Melissa, editor. | Heuvel, Danielle van den, editor.
Title: Food hawkers : selling in the streets from antiquity to the present /
edited by Melissa Calaresu and Danielle van den Heuvel.
Description: Farnham, Surrey, UK; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, [2016] |
Series: The history of retailing and consumption |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015038653 | ISBN 9781409450429 (hardcover: alk. paper) |
ISBN 9781315582665 (ebook) | ISBN 9781472404008 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Street-food vendors–History. | Street vendors–History.
Classification: LCC HF5458.F66 2016 | DDC 381/.456413009–dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015038653
ISBN: 9781409450429 (hbk)
ISBN: 9781315582665 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Out of House Publishing
Contents

List of colour plates vii
List of figures ix
List of tables xiii
Notes on contributors xiv
Series editor’s preface xvii
Acknowledgements xviii
Introduction: Food hawkers from representation to reality 1
MELISSA CALARESU AND DANIELLE VAN DEN HEUVEL
1 Representations of food hawkers in ancient Rome 19
CLAIRE HOLLERAN
2 Quodlibets and fricassées: food in musical settings of street
cries in early modern London 43
DEBORAH L. KROHN
3 Street cries on the frozen Thames: food hawkers at London
frost fairs, 1608–1814 62
IVAN DAY
4 Food, markets and people: selling perishables in urban markets
in pre-industrial Holland and England 84
DANIELLE VAN DEN HEUVEL
5 Food selling and urban space in early modern Naples 107
MELISSA CALARESU
6 The myth of la belle Madeleine: street culture and celebrity in
nineteenth-century Paris 135
TOM STAMMERS
vi Contents
7 The street food sector in Vietnam: serious business for female
entrepreneurs 165
ANNEMARIE M.F. HIEMSTRA
8 Rethinking street foods: street food hospitality in contemporary
Calcutta 186
MANPREET K. JANEJA
9 Negotiating gendered spatial boundaries: women’s food
hawking in Penang, Malaysia 208
ANJA K. FRANCK
Select bibliography 230
Index 239
Colour plates

1 Pieter Aertsen (c. 1508–1575), Market Scene,
c. 1550. 60 x 122 cm. Alte Pinakothek, Bayerische
Staatsgemaeldesammlungen, Munich, Germany. Photo
credit: bpk, Berlin/Bayerische Staatsgemaeldesammlungen,
Munich, Germany/Lutz Braun/Art Resource, NY.
2 Vincenzo Campi (1536–1591), Still Life with Fowl, c. 1580, oil
on canvas. Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, Italy. Scala/Art
Resource, NY.
3 The vegetable market, Hendrick Martensz Sorgh, 1662.
Painting. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
4 The Leiden tripe hall, Jacob Timmermans, c. 1788. Drawing.
Historische Vereniging Oud Leiden.
5 Domenico Gargiulo (otherwise known as Micco Spadaro),
Market Square or Piazza del Carmine of Naples, c. 1654. Oil
on canvas, 141 x 76 cm. Palacio Tavera, Fundación Casa
Ducal de Medinaceli, Toledo.
6 Antonio Joli, The Church of San Paolo Maggiore, Naples,
1756–1758. Oil on canvas, 19¼ ins x 30 ins. Palace House,
Beaulieu. By kind permission of Lord Montagu of Beaulieu.
7 Marchande de gâteaux de Nanterre. Carle Vernet, Cris de
Paris c. 1822. Coloured lithograph by Delpech. Cabinet des
Estampes, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.
8 Adrien Joly, ‘Fichet rôle de Madeleine dans Le Boghey
Renversé’, 1813. Coloured engraving. Bibliothèque Historique
de la Ville de Paris.
9 An ambulatory vendor in Hue selling noodle soup. Photo
© Annemarie Hiemstra and Koen van der Kooy.
10 A stationary vendor at a local market in Hue, selling rice
meals and noodle soup. Photo © Annemarie Hiemstra and
Koen van der Kooy.
11 An image of the Hindu god Shiva painted on the lid of a
street food (bhel puri) pushcart. Photo © Manpreet K. Janeja.
viii Colour plates
12 A street food vendor offering a ‘home delivery’ service
(advertised on the painted signboard on the wall) for hot
food (ghoogni chaat) in aluminium foil containers. Photo ©
Manpreet K. Janeja.
Figures

0.1 Detail of Ambrogio Brambilla, Ritrato de quelli che vano
vendendo et lavorando per Roma con la nova agionta de tutti
quelli che nelle altre mancavano sin al presente (Rome, 1612).
Pepys Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge. 4
0.2 David Allan, ‘Pont Neuf, Paris’, from A Collection of Dresses
by Da. Allan Mostly from Nature, 1776, Aberdeen Art Gallery
& Museums Collections. 4
0.3 Female pancake seller, Gillis van Scheyndel, 1630–1706,
Engraving. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. 5
0.4 Glass penny licks, nineteenth century, English, Ivan Day
Collection. Photo © Ivan Day. 7
0.5 Yum Bun Traders, part of London’s KERB street trader
collective. Photo © Andrew Corbett (2013). 10
1.1 Statuette of hawker, House of P. Cornelius Tages, Pompeii
(I.7.10). Photo: Archivio fotografico Soprintendenza Speciale
per i beni archeologici di Napoli e Pompei. 29
1.2 Scenes of sale, frieze from praedia of Julia Felix, Pompeii
(II.4) Photo: Archivio fotografico Soprintendenza Speciale per
i beni archeologici di Napoli e Pompei. 31
1.3 Relief of vegetable seller, Ostia FU 2383, Fototeca Unione,
American Academy in Rome. 33
1.4 Relief of poultry seller, Ostia FU 2380, Fototeca Unione,
American Academy in Rome. 34
2.1 Cries of London, seventeenth century, English. Etching 7.32 x
10.63 in. (18.6 x 27 cm). British Museum, 1843, 0311.279. 44
2.2 Hugh Alley (1556–1602), A caveatt for the city of London, or
a forewarninge of offences against penall lawes, 1598. Folger
Shakespeare Library Digital Image Collection, V. a. 318, fol. 9r. 51
3.1 Title page of The great frost: Cold doings in London, except
it be at the lotterie. With newes out of the country. A familiar
talk betwene a country-man and a citizen touching this terrible
frost and the great lotterie, and the effects of them. Letterpress