Celebrating Food in a Cup

So street food has existed ever since the first urban settlements were created, and a city street food can teach us so much about the migration of people and ingredients and techniques.

Yes, and for a person in a new country, street vending is often a vital part of how one enters a city's economy. It's also a way to keep cultural traditions alive.

There are so many kinds of street foods.

I mean tacos, hot dogs, pretzels, and then there are foods specifically sold in a disposable cup.

Today's episode is all about food.

And food and a cup of it.

My name is Eva Longoria and I am Mate remez Rajon and welcome to Hungry for History, a podcast.

That explores our past and present through food.

On every episode, we'll talk about the history of some of our favorite dishes, ingredients, and beverages from our culture.

So make yourself at home.

Today we're going to talk about that idea of a cup and so that it's something so intimate in a way and something so personal. So we're going to focus on food in a cup and what that tells us about people waves of immigration. Have a conversation about our favorite sort of foods in a cup and what we think of And then BILLI Sparza will come in, and I thought of him because he wrote this article and eater La about the body cup, and it's this Puerto

I love food in a cup. I think it's convenient. I think it's creative. I think it's fun. Who invented this?

I know who?

You're the first person to put things a cup and said, go on, go off now it is.

So so funny and so interesting.

And I agree.

There's something so intimate about a cup and so inventive, Like you said, I mean, it's so entrepreneurial.

Yes, it holds something. It's easier than a bowl. It's a cup.

You could walk around with it, it's not going to fall over. Who did this first? So let's go way back and talk about the cup, like what were the first food serve a cup?

And who invented the cup?

Who invented the first like food a cup.

Well, it's impossible to know who invented the first cup, because cups have been used, you know, forever before recorded history.

The earliest known drinking vessels were made from pottery and go back around twenty thousand bees.

I know, I was at the Wine Museum in Bordeaux and one of the first vessels that people drink wine out of is there, and it's I don't know how really they founded in like an excavation of something, and that they really believed that was the first wine wine glass.

So yeah, cups in general go way back.

Pups in general, yes, they go way back.

Glass was first first appeared in the sixteenth century BC and Mesopotamia and in Egypt. So this idea of a cup, and even before that it's probably people were using you know, shells or boards. So, but the first foods historically recorded to be served in a cup are things like soups or broths or you know, stews, those things that had a lot of well it.

Must have been in Roman times for sure, right, well.

Roman times for sure they were the first or one of the first civilizations to use cups, you know. For the six change of ready to eat foods in public spaces. So when you think of places like Pompeii that had a lot of stock, like food vending, a lot of street foods and stuff like that, like.

A market, a market with stalls.

And exactly, and they would exchange things like wine or broth or like wine like you just mentioned. So they were really one of the first civilizations in the Western world to sort of do this, to exchange these you know, to have this sort of street food you know exchange that's recorded.

So that was ancient Rome, and then that evolved into Europe.

So yeah, ancient Rome, and then as time progressed, so ancient Roman vessels they were using, you know, pottery and places like Pompeii, and then as times goes on in medieval Europe, street vendors sold foods in wooden cups, so we see pottery, then we start seeing wood In pre Columbia Mexico, they would sell food in the markets in the Tiangeese from pottery and also from gourds.

But I would have to think that the industrial revolution also had an influence on not only street food, right because of the amount of workers, but this food and a cup idea.

Absolutely absolutely, And then we start seeing a difference in materials. So we start seeing things like ten when originally it was pottery. Then we start seeing more sort of different materials.

Wow.

But then so.

Waite, when did we screw it all up and started doing disposable That's that's the big question.

And this is what makes street bending in a cup so easy, right with this disposable cup.

So the disposables or the styrophone, remember the styros I think they still sort of escape this in the styrofoam cups in Mexico.

Yeah, so styrofoam was sort of very easy for make things much easier for a lot of people, but it's.

Sort of horrible, horrible, horrible for the environment.

But there's evidence of documented paper cups in China around the second century BC, where paper cups were used for serving tea, but the modern disposable paper cup is traced to the start of the twentieth century. The styrofoam was not invented until nineteen forty one. An engineer at Dow Chemicals invented styrofoam in an attempt to create a rubber like surface, and it had polystyrene, which holds heat. But the nineteen sixties became the age of the styrofoam cop.

All right, when we come back, we'll have a conversation with James Beard. Award winning journalist Bill Esparsa, considered one of the country's leading experts on Mexican food.

Don't go anywhere.

I feel I don't know what.

I feel like Mexicans invented everything.

I'm sure I'm wrong, but I feel like fluting a cup is so Latino. It's so Latin America. Definitely, is that? Do you feel that wall we I mean I grew up with food in it yeah, everywhere.

Yeah, all around me, Yes, so did I. But it is something global. I mean I feel like probably every culture can say, oh yeah, my culture is you know, is the one that did the food in the cup first? You know, It's just such a part of street food and community because even when you think of, you know, growing up in the in the US, like the ice cream truck. But for sure, I mean I grew up with the frutero, the.

Esquites in the States.

The growth of Latin American communities in the twentieth century created this imflux in a variety of street foods. So yes, I agree with you that Mexicans have the best street food and introduced them or began introducing them to the US in the twentieth century. So the esquitees comes from the Nawa word esquito, from the word issekwi, which means to toe corn. And they're often sold by street vendors

And I didn't want to go to the wrong person.

And then all of a sudden, I see a line form and there's a woman with her little carrito and there's this steam and she's cooking the corn in some sort of broth.

It's it's it's some sort of Chili I think, I don't know which kind of chila, maybe Chila Wahio or something like that. Best esqui this ever, well, I do.

I can see how immigrants bring their food cultures from their native lands and they kind of adapt them to their adopted lands. And so when these cultures and flavors are like mixed together in a cup, it really reflects this this like tapestry of a city, and for me, it's magical.

Adapting to what's available here. But it also bringing these food cultures. It just sort of creates a way to share foods from within and also from outside of the community. So you introduce your foods to people who are not part of your culture, so it becomes this really interesting exchange of culture.

All Right, you guys today we have an amazing person with us.

We don't have a lot of guests on the show bill.

So.

I'm spoiled, feeling spoiled.

Are you?

I'm doing fine? Up, are you?

Mike is your biggest I'm a huge fan.

Oh well, thank you so much.

Where did you grow up there in northern California. My family is from West Calientes. We have the most amazing dorta ever. Oh really, Krema, It's it's a bolo they only make there, and they fill it with cream, a pickled jalapeno and that's it. Or and a piece of ham, a piece of like lunch meat ham. It's it's a cream torta.

Is it like nata or is it like Mexican Krema, it'sma.

Oh my gosh, it sounds delicious.

Well, you've eaten your way through Los Angeles, So what is some of the most interesting foods in a cup You've encountered the.

Most interesting inside of a cup? Yeah, vasso bourriqua.

There's ah, it's a Puerto Rican stand I just wrote about recently down in Long Beach, and they do these really trendy cups that are popular in Puerto Rico, and they have mofongo arols and and they have a skewer coming out plantains, all their flavors, a little bit of mayo ketchup and so that is one of the coolest cups I've had in Los Angeles.

I didn't even think about Puerto Rican food in a cup, but yeah, could be in a cup, yet, could be in a cup.

Mofongo is one of my favorite things is the.

Name and longer.

So we've got to post some photo right now.

I did.

This is why I wanted to have you on because when I read about this body cup, I was like, this is incredible. Like I've I had not not thought about Puerto Rico either. I was focusing on Oh, It'squita's and the stuff that you know, I'm more familiar with.

But the body cup is like, Oh, this is so interesting.

And then you know, I love Bill how you discover all of these places all over the city that are underappreciated, little places in La and.

How you know, know food in a cup?

I street food is so broad, but food, so we're footing on food and cup that it's just something that brings together different cultures and you know, people outside of a culture like us that our Mexicans can taste this, you know, Puerto Rican culture and have a little and I love that this sort of that a cup can bring all of these different cultures together. So when I read about your body cup, I was like, Oh, we

Well, I think in the in the case of the eighties, they're really you know, they're honing in on a trend that's happening all over Puerto Rico, where cultures are always people always say, well, well, traditional food is like we want to do food. It's not traditional. We want to we want to do something different. But the truth is traditional food is not static. It's always innovating. It's always changing always book people don't like the word authentic, and

You know, they'll have a certain you've seen this before.

You go around to Cuban restaurants and they all have a very similar menu, and you go to Mexican restaurants that have the same menu, and then when you see something like that, you're like, you know what, I wonder what's like now, I know what's happening in Puerto Rico, like what they're eating right now.

And that's exciting for me. I think.

I always say you learn about a culture through their food.

Oh yeah, we always talk about this idea of that is authentic, is so personal and one of the things that's so I think exciting about food and like us that think about food all the time and that write.

About food, it's constantly evolving.

It is not static like ever, right, So that I think is super exciting.

Yeah, it's it's not a museum, it's it's it's a lie.

How amazing was he? I want his job? Like he just what does he just go around and eat and eats and writes about it?

Yeah, he eats right now. He joined us from Washington State. He was at a Thaco festival in Washington State. It's awesome and you know, we learned about the Banesilco Bala that when we did our Afro celebrating Afro Mexican history. So and I learned about them through one of his articles. So he eats his way around La, but he really gets to know the people that are making and selling the food. So this is what I really like about

What's your favorite food in a cup? There's so many that's really hard.

I mean, I would have to say, I love escuit this I grew up.

I love this too, so good.

I grew up calling them ado though I didn't learn the word is that until.

I called him a lots in a cup. I said, a lot isn't a cup?

And then they're like, no, there's a lot, and then there's a steth this and I never knew it was. It was called two different things. But yeah, until until you know, being in Mexico. But you know what else is a close second for me through me too.

I love I love mango and cucumbers with chile and lime and taheen and.

CHAMOI I love, Like, I can't pass by one of those food one of those fruita vendors on the street. If they are on the street, I pull over and I get a cup of mango.

Same same.

There's one on the corner of my house right right here. I can see them if I look out of my office window. Yeah, as soon as I see the little umbrella, I love.

But also like, let's talk about fruit though, Like let's talk about the fruit in a cup, because that is an explosion of.

Cultures completely one cup. Because the mango's from where.

Mangoes from India, coconut and limes are from Asia, watermelon is from Africa, hikamis from Mexico. Chamoi is this sort of mixture of cultures, Asian cultures that was then developed in Mexico. So it's just a nix losion of flavors and it's essentially the whole world in a cup. But at the same time, yeah, salt, yeah, So it's it's this incredible. I mean, it's it's just it's the whole

Like you said, they're usually immigrants, wake up at five am, they go to the wholesale fruit market, they per you know, they have to push their card everywhere. I mean, it is hard work, you know. And then they usually end at night. I mean their day start so early and then it ends at night.

And a lot of these these fruit thattos, you know, eventually save money to purchase like their own push card or their own vehicle.

So I just think there's so much history behind behind.

Yeah, I mean, it's it's incredibly hard work.

And there's this woman a professor at a University of California at Irvine, Rossio Rosalez, who did a field study on fruttos in La and they're immigrants and at the beginning of her study in two thousand and six, she learned that most of the immigrants at that time came from the same town in Bueblin, and so people from this town were immigrating here. They never think that they're gonna, you know, become fruit vendors when they get here, but

So there's this.

Community already here and it's grueling. I mean it's but but it really is is a way into a city's economy for for many new immigrants from Mexico to the to the US. And yet you never see them just on a hammock, just hanging out chilling. No, They're they're working there.

Gas is off. Yeah.

Let me tell you something. I am big on TikTok. I'm a big TikToker now. And one of the trendiest things on TikTok is ramen bilia. Yeah, and talk about a car crash of cultures because bilia, as you know, is like this brothy, amazing dish and full of flavor.

All these spices usually traditionally made of goats of goats.

Meat, but you know you can have bva is now that kind of like the term of like you can have any meat.

It's just the brothiness of like different things. Because I've had beef, be thea, I goat, b via. I've had different things. Although the original original is traditionally goat, but.

Now people are adding ramen noodles, which is Japanese even though ramen originated in China. It's it's you know, it's this cultural exchange in a cup, which is so I wonder who the first person came up with this of like this hot broth, Why don't I heat up my noodles, my instant noodles in this amazing broth, which is probably one of the best ideas ever.

I know, it's such an ingenious idea for sure, but yeah, it's like the Mexican beria, the rama noodles that are very Japanese but originated in China. So it's this sort of you know, you know mix. And then the instant noodles were invented to help address this food shortage crisis in Japan after the Second World War by an inventor slash businessman, Mamafuko Ondo in nineteen fifty eight. So yeah, using the broth, waiting three minutes and then selling it is like so ingenious, incredibly.

You know, and then adding cilantro and onions and lime juice like biria and ramen together Bilia ramen, which is they're calling it bila ramen.

Piri ramen is brilliant.

It's brilliant brilliant, and people credit this Mexican ship, right, yeah, we're creating this.

Mexico City A chef, Antonio de Livier was credited by making it first but using fresh noodles in his Mexico City restaurant. But it became more famous in La So it became really famous twenty nineteen, so not that long ago. And now it's like it's a huge thing. And like the fruit that, it's like the whole world in a cup.

The other thing I grew up with in a cup is rustbus. In Texas, we have rastpus. My husband makes fun of me because he's like, that's not what they're called, because in Mexico they're called rastpatos, yeah, which are snowclones.

Yeah.

So that's another fun thing. And sometimes you can put coconut shavings. Sometimes there's like ice cream in the middle around the shaved ice.

You can have all these different flavors like that a huge part of my child mine.

Too, and or or some sort of fruity syrup and then condensed milk, or just the ice with condensed milk.

Yes, oh my god, it's so good.

We talk a little bit about that in our in our ice cream episode last season, we talked a little bit about the the ras us.

Yeah, but you know what I I've never had, which I saw was on our list was flout buzz and busts.

You haven't had them?

Oh, I've never seen that? No, have you? Yes?

Yes, I don't know where I've seen them, but I have seen them.

And it's basically the cup and on the bottom they put the salsad, like a green salsa or something, and they put the little flout thas, which are the little you know, fried takitos rolled and then they they're sticking out of the cop. So instead of walking around with a plate that's kind of awkward, it's a cup and you just dip, you know, you just you know, you could double dip or triple dip because it's your little cup and it's and then you put the cheese and

What a great idea because it is a hand food, you know what I mean, it's a it's a hand food. So that's amazing to have the Grandma and the sauts on the bottom of the cup. We're like, what what, I'm going to just start making flats at home and do that. It's a great I'm going to give it to my son in a cup.

Yeah it's easy. It's easy. Yeah, it's so easy.

It's a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant idea.

Everybody, Thank you for listening to this episode of Food and a Cup. I think it's so enlightening because, like you said, Mikey, they're like these little collisions of cultures. The world is in your hands, and what a what a great topic to talk about.

Now I'm hungry.

Now I'm hungry too. Yes, the world did a cup. Thank you all so much for listening.

Thanks everybody for listening.

Hungry for History is a hyphen Media production in partnership with Iheart's Michael past Network.

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