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A snack is a small portion of food generally eaten between meals. [1] A snack is often less than 200 [2] calories, but this can vary. Snacks come in a variety of forms including packaged snack foods and other processed foods, as well as items made from fresh ingredients at home.
Traditionally, snacks are prepared from a number of ingredients commonly available at home without a great deal of preparation. Often cold cuts, fruits, leftovers, nuts, sandwiches, and sweets are used as snacks. With the spread of convenience stores, packaged snack foods became a significantly profitable business.
Snack foods are typically designed to be portable, quick, and satisfying. Processed snack foods, as one form of convenience food, are designed to be less perishable, more durable, and more portable than prepared foods. They often contain substantial amounts of sweeteners, preservatives, and appealing ingredients such as chocolate, peanuts, and specially designed flavors (such as flavored potato chips). Aside from the use of additives, the viability of packaging so that food quality can be preserved without degradation is also important for commercialization. [3]
A snack eaten shortly before going to bed or during the night may be called a "bedtime snack", "late night snack", or "midnight snack".
Indian snack foods are typically called chaats . Snacks like pani puri and samosas have become popular outside of India.
Most traditional snacks are home-made or sold by street vendors. Haldiram's is one of the top-selling and famous Indian snack brands around the world.
Indonesia has a rich collection of snacks called kue (cakes and pastry), both savoury and sweet. Traditional kue is usually made from rice flour, coconut milk, and coconut sugar, and is mostly steamed or fried rather than baked. Traditional kue are popularly known as kue basah ("wet kue") that has a moist, soft texture because of rich coconut milk. Kue kering (dried kue) is the local name for cookies. Indonesia has several variations of kue, both native and foreign-influenced.[ citation needed ]
Traditional crackers are called krupuk , made from bits of shrimp, fish, vegetables or nuts, which are usually consumed as a crunchy snack or an accompaniment to meals. [4] These crispy snacks are sometimes added to main dishes for their crunchy texture; several Indonesian dishes such as gado-gado, karedok, ketoprak, lontong sayur, nasi uduk, asinan and bubur ayam are known to require specific types of krupuk as toppings. There are wide variations of krupuk available across Indonesia. The most popular ones would be krupuk udang (prawn crackers) and krupuk kampung or krupuk putih (cassava crackers).
Other popular types include krupuk kulit (dried buffalo-skin crackers), emping melinjo (gnetum gnemon crackers), and kripik (chips/crisps), such as kripik pisang (banana chips) and keripik singkong (Cassava chips). Rempeyek is a flour-based cracker with brittle of peanuts, anchovies or shrimp bound by a crispy flour cracker. Rengginang or intip (Javanese) is a rice cracker made from sun-dried and deep fried leftover rice.
Japan has a very wide range of snack foods, some of which are internationally popular, ranging from onigiri to melon pan.
In 2010, the average Canadian ate 300 snacks. [6] Canadian identity is often associated with snack foods that are sold in Canada [7] due to economic nationalism. [8] Some Canadian snacks include ketchup chips, Smarties, Coffee Crisp, Kinder Surprise, Jos Louis, Big Turk, and Nanaimo bars. [9]
In the United States, a popular snack food is the peanut. Peanuts first arrived from South America via slave ships and became incorporated into African-inspired cooking on southern plantations. After the Civil War, the taste for peanuts spread north, where they were incorporated into the culture of such popular events as baseball games and vaudeville theaters. [10]
Along with popcorn (also of South American origin), snacks bore the stigma of being sold by unhygienic street vendors. The middle-class etiquette of the Victorian era (1837–1901) categorized any food that did not require proper usage of utensils as lower-class. [10]
Pretzels were introduced to North America by the Dutch, via New Amsterdam in the 17th century. In the 1860s, the snack was still associated with immigrants, unhygienic street vendors, and saloons. Due to loss of business during the Prohibition era (1920–1933), pretzels underwent rebranding to make them more appealing to the public. As packaging revolutionized snack foods, allowing sellers to reduce contamination risk, while making it easy to advertise brands with a logo, pretzels boomed in popularity, bringing many other types of snack foods with it. By the 1950s, snacking had become an all-American pastime, becoming an internationally recognized emblem of middle American life. [10] [11]
Nuts are a staple of snacks in the Middle East. Among the many varieties available within the region, the most popular are almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts, pine nuts, and pistachios. [12] According to archeological evidence, nuts have been part of the Middle Eastern diet for centuries with ancient civilizations taking advantage of them for their health benefits. [13] The health benefits of nuts comes from them being good sources of protein, healthy fats, fibers, vitamins and minerals. [14] Nuts have now become a regular snack with a 119 billion dollar market as of 2022 that is projected to continue growing into 2023. [15] Nuts can be prepared in a variety of ways, such as by roasting them with spices and lemon juice or incorporating them into food and desserts such as baklava, knafeh, and kibbeh. [16] [17] [18]
Spreads and dips are eaten with pita bread. The most popular dip in the middle east is hummus. [19] Hummus is a blend of chickpeas, tahini, lemon, and garlic usually served with olive oil and paprika on top. [20] Hummus's origins can be traced back to a Syrian cookbook from the 13th century. [21] Other dips are also popularly served such as mouhammara and baba ganoush. [19] Mouhammara is a walnut, tahini, and roasted red pepper dip served with olive oil on top originating from the Syrian city of Aleppo. [22] Baba ganoush is a spread made from roasted eggplants, olive oil, and other vegetables. [23] The origins of baba ganoush are not clear with many conflicting pieces of evidence pointing to multiple countries of origin. [24] A sweet dip is Ashta, a cream made from milk, rose or orange blossom water, and ghee, which is usually accompanied with honey. [25]
Many popular snacks in the Middle East are obtained from street vendors due to low cost and convenience of eating on the go. [26] Many of these snacks consist of a protein with bread. [26] Falafel consists of many little fried balls of ground chickpeas or fava beans with herbs, spices served in pita bread with tahini sauce and a choice of vegetables. [27] Falafel is believed to originate from Egypt around 1000 years ago by Egyptian Copts. [28] Shawarma is served in a similar fashion to falafel, pita bread with sauce and vegetables, but instead prepared by slowly cooking layers of meat on a spit before thinly slicing it. [29]
The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject.(April 2023) |
Government bodies, such as Health Canada, recommend that people make a conscious effort to eat more healthy, natural snacks, such as fruit, vegetables, nuts, and cereal grains while avoiding high-calorie, low-nutrient junk food. [30]
A 2010 study showed that children in the United States snacked on average six times per day, approximately twice as often as American children in the 1970s. [31] This represents consumption of roughly 570 calories more per day than U.S. children consumed in the 1970s. [32]
Trail mix is a type of snack mix, typically a combination of granola, dried fruit, nuts, and sometimes candy, developed as a food to be taken along on hikes. Trail mix is a popular snack food for hikes, because it is lightweight, easy to store, and nutritious, providing a quick energy boost from the carbohydrates in the dried fruit or granola, and sustained energy from fat nuts.
Indonesian cuisine is a collection of various regional culinary traditions that formed in the archipelagic nation of Indonesia. There are a wide variety of recipes and cuisines in part because Indonesia is composed of approximately 6,000 populated islands of the total 17,508 in the world's largest archipelago, with more than 1,300 ethnic groups.
A fritter is a portion of meat, seafood, fruit, vegetables, or other ingredients which have been battered or breaded, or just a portion of dough without further ingredients, that is deep-fried. Fritters are prepared in both sweet and savory varieties.
A dip or dip sauce is a common condiment for many types of food. Dips are used to add flavor or texture to a food, such as pita bread, dumplings, crackers, chopped raw vegetables, fruits, seafood, cubed pieces of meat and cheese, potato chips, tortilla chips, falafel, and sometimes even whole sandwiches in the case of jus. Unlike other sauces, instead of applying the sauce to the food, the food is typically placed or dipped into the sauce.
Arab cuisine collectively refers to the regional culinary traditions of the Arab world, consisting of the Maghreb and the Mashriq. These cuisines are centuries old and reflect the culture of trading in ingredients, spices, herbs, and commodities among the Arabs. The regions have many similarities, but also unique traditions. They have also been influenced by climate, cultivation, and mutual commerce.
Iraqi cuisine is a Middle Eastern cuisine that has its origins in the ancient Near East culture of the fertile crescent. Tablets found in ancient ruins in Iraq show recipes prepared in the temples during religious festivals—the first cookbooks in the world. Ancient Iraq's cultural sophistication extended to the culinary arts.
Levantine cuisine is the traditional cuisine of the Levant, in the sense of the rough area of former Ottoman Syria. The cuisine has similarities with Egyptian cuisine, North African cuisine and Ottoman cuisine. It is particularly known for its meze spreads of hot and cold dishes, most notably among them ful medames, hummus, tabbouleh and baba ghanoush, accompanied by bread.
Somali cuisine was influenced by many different countries mainly due to trade, but traditionally also varies from region to region due to the expansive landmass Somalis inhabit. It is the product of Somalia's tradition of trade and commerce. Some notable Somali specialties include kimis / sabaayad, canjeero / laxoox, xalwo (halwa), sambuusa (samosa), bariis iskukaris, and muqmad / oodkac.
A rice cracker is an East Asian cracker made from bleached or unbleached rice flour. Many regional varieties exist, though most are fried or baked and puffed and/or brushed with soy sauce or vinegar to create a smooth texture. Some may also be wrapped in seaweed.
Israeli cuisine primarily comprises dishes brought from the Jewish diaspora, and has more recently been defined by the development of a notable fusion cuisine characterized by the mixing of Jewish cuisine and Arab cuisine. It also blends together the culinary traditions of the various diaspora groups, namely those of Middle Eastern Jews with roots in Southwest Asia and North Africa, Sephardi Jews from Iberia, and Ashkenazi Jews from Central and Eastern Europe.
Javanese cuisine is the cuisine of Javanese people, a major ethnic group in Indonesia, more precisely the province of Central Java, Yogyakarta and East Java.
Jordanian cuisine is a Levantine cuisine developed over time in Jordan. Stuffed vegetables are common, with many different techniques employed in their preparation. Meat is an important component of Jordanian cuisine, most often lamb, beef and chicken but also goat and camel meat. Rice is frequently served as a side dish but there are also one-pot rice dishes such as maqloubah.
Mizrahi Jewish cuisine is an assortment of cooking traditions that developed among the Mizrahi Jewish communities of the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia. Influenced by the diverse local culinary practices of countries such as Morocco, Libya, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, and Syria, Mizrahi cuisine prominently features rice, legumes, meats, and an array of spices such as cumin, turmeric, and coriander. Signature dishes include kubbeh (dumplings), pilafs, grilled meats, and stews like hamin.
Sundanese cuisine is the cuisine of the Sundanese people of Western Java, and Banten, Indonesia. It is one of the most popular foods in Indonesia. Sundanese food is characterised by its freshness; the famous lalab eaten with sambal and also karedok demonstrate the Sundanese fondness for fresh raw vegetables. Unlike the rich and spicy taste, infused with coconut milk and curry of Minangkabau cuisine, the Sundanese cuisine displays the simple and clear taste; ranged from savoury salty, fresh sourness, mild sweetness, to hot and spicy.
Prawn crackers are a deep-fried snack made from starch and prawn. They are a common snack food in Southeast Asian cuisine, but they are most closely associated with Indonesia. They have also been adapted into East Asian cuisines, where the similar Japanese kappa ebisen (かっぱえびせん) and Korean saeukkang are popular snacks.
Arab Indonesian cuisine is characterized by the mixture of Middle Eastern cuisine with local Indonesian-style cuisine. Arab Indonesians brought their legacy of Arab cuisine—originally from Hadhramaut, Hejaz, Sudan and Egypt—and modified some of the dishes with the addition of Indonesian ingredients. The Arabs arrived in the Nusantara archipelago to trade and spread Islam. In Java, since the 18th century AD, most of Arab traders settled on the north coast and diffuse with indigenous, thus affecting the local cuisine culture, especially in the use of goat and mutton meat as well as ghee in cooking.