Street Food, Ancient

street food, ancient. Street food dominated the daily lives of the lower- and middle-income groups in ancient urban societies, such as those of Athens and Rome. Because the lower classes may have had no more than a sleeping space and certainly no kitchen, many of their daily food needs were met on the street, in the form of both sweet and savory pastries and other dough products. Honey boiled into syrup provided the sweetener for the many forms of deep-fried fritters that seem to have been common. See fried dough and fritters. One particular type (encytum) was pressed through a perforated bowl into hot oil and shaped into a spiral that was then smothered in honey, a technique still widely used in the Middle East today. Globi were round balls of semolina and cheese deep-fried in lard and covered in honey and poppy seed. Fritters like these are still found in many parts of the Mediterranean, from the churros of Spain and struffoli of Italy to the loukoumades of Greece.