On 19 Nov 2003 17:23:32 -0800, babar > wrote:
> hello folks,
> i want to find out what street foods out there can be
> preserved or made into snacks, those who don't need refrigeration and
> could have a long shelf life. it doesn't matter what part of the world
> it comes from. name and description of the snack would be helpfull. i
> need this for my thesis in school. thank you in advance.

Depends on what you mean by a long shelf life, but I can tell
you about our recent experiences in Malaysia, where street food is a
way of life. The foods prepared there aren't meant to be refrigerated
or set aside for long periods of time, because they're _street food_.
Everything we ate at hawker stalls was prepared after we ordered it,
delivered to our table promptly, and consumed even more promptly. I
really can't think of many street foods that would fit your criteria.
Here are the very few that might work:

1) Not sure of the Chinese name for it, but it's basically a jerky,
usually made with beef or pork. Highly seasoned, and either made
from thinly sliced meat or ground meat that's pressed into sheets
before cooking/curing. I assume it has a long shelf life the way
beef jerky does, but quite frankly, any time we get our hands on
any of the real stuff, it disappears within days.

2) A bundle of steamed sticky rice, salted egg, chinese sausage and other
goodies, wrapped in a banana leaf and tied into a neat package.

3) Kueh-- sweet, sticky rice cakes, sometimes with fillings, sometimes
not. Usually flavored with coconut milk and dyed with pandan
sometimes.

4) Fruit. In Malaysia, this means durian, rambutans, pomelos,
starfruit, chiku, the ever-present banana, longans, lychees, etc.
This may require a looser definition of street food, however.

You might want to revamp your thesis if it's very dependent on this
long shelf life thing. There's tons more great street food we had,
but I don't think they'd be too great sitting around in such a hot,
humid climate with no refrigeration.

Ariane