In Asia, it’s often cheaper to buy food outside rather than cooking at home, whereas in Europe, the ratio is completely reversed. Also, culturally, everyone is often taking food and bring it back home.
I can see some reasons that might explain this, such as the cost of labor or stricter health regulations in Europe compared to Asia. But even with these factors in mind, it doesn’t explain it all.
Of course, I understand that it’s not feasible to replicate a model like Thailand’s street food culture in Europe. The regulations and cost of labor would likely make it impossible to achieve such competitive prices. But if we look at a place like Taiwan, for example, where street food is less common and instead, you have more buffet-style restaurants where you can get takeaway or eat on-site for around €3, while cooking the same meal at home might cost between €1.50. The price difference is barely 2x, which is still very far from the situation in Europe.
Why isn’t something like this possible in Europe?
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Different regulations and taxes and fees when you open up food stands and restaurants. In Europe and north America depending on where you are the cost to open up a place is higher than alot of places in Asia. Street food permits are often hard to get if they give them at all. There is alot more competition is asian cities and lower costs to open a food stand etc.
Clarification: What do you mean by “Asia”? That’s a huge generalisation. The situation in India is not the same as SE Asia, for example. Your claim definitely does not hold for India. Cooking at home is the cheapest.
Huh? No way, it’s cheaper to cook at home than buying outside in South East Asia.
If you’re living alone, it would be easier just to buy or eat outside. When you cook, you will end up having the same food every day for a week. Unless you will just buy frozen packaged meals loaded with salt. In an Asian family setting, eating together is very important even to the point of waiting for a family member to arrive, after which lunch or dinner is served. If there is not enough time or ingredients to prep a meal, then they can just order somewhere and bring it home so everyone will enjoy it. This usually happens during payday. Weather wise also, you can enjoy the shabu shabu outside or any food stalls all year round in countries with only 2 seasons.
Europe rich. SE Asia poor.
If you have money you’ll have time and space. If you have money and time and space you’ll have a nice kitchen. It’s fun to take your abundant time to cook in a nice kitchen. Make what you like the way you like it and feed others in the dining room and it’s great.
If you don’t have money then you won’t have time or space. If you don’t have money or time or space then you won’t have a kitchen. It’s awful to try to cook on a hotplate in a bedroom in a hurry… even worse trying to serve your hot plate special to friends sitting on your bed. So they eat out.
No it is not often cheaper to buy food outside than eating at home. Your question is based on a false premise.
Source: I’m Asia
I would like to point out that it isn’t so cut-and-dry when looking at the home vs restaurant price ratio across entire continents.
I don’t have a lot of firsthand knowledge of Asian ‘hospitality economies’ (food, restaurants, hotels, etc), so I’m going to focus mostly on the European side of the equation…
While many countries it is much more expensive to eat outside of the house, in others it can be very affordable.
Spain is a good example of this, and people quite often eat outside of the home multiple times per week.
If you look at the Spanish custom of ‘Tapas’, while it isn’t exactly the same as the Asian ‘street food’ culture, it’s probably the closest in terms of price and ease of access. There are plenty of places where you can order a wine, beer, or soft drink for <3€ and it will come with a Tapa, a small plate of food that could be anything from a few slices of cured meat on a slice of bread all the way to a plate of rice, fried fish, a hamburger, etc….it is entirely possible to have a full meal and drinks for ~10€ this way, even in big cities like Madrid (such as in the bar [El Tigre](https://maps.app.goo.gl/Snf23bsv4nNgyzar5)
> Also, culturally, everyone is often taking food and bring it back home.
According to you that the asian or european culture?
There’s some misconceptions in your post. Historically people have cooked at home for the majority of their meals, it’s only recently with the rise of jobs with longer hours and duo income household, that it’s basically become the norm for people to buy prepared meals to bring home, and this is less true in rural life still. Restaurant and street food is not particularly cheap either. Compared to western prices, sure, but it is still cheaper to buy the ingredients and make it at home, although the effort might not be worth it.
Also, Taiwan is known for street food, it’s had an iconic night market scene for a very long time.
How is everyone not even mentioning the ludicrousness of asking about food culture in “Asia”? Asia is the largest continent on planet earth and spans from the Sinai peninsula to Japan. Most Asians cook at home. You sound like someone who visited Tokyo or Hong Kong a few times and somehow extrapolated that to an entire continent.
People who live in very crowded cities often cook less because real estate is at a premium and kitchens are very small and impractical. You will find the same food culture in New York. In rural China or the mountains of Japan, people are more likely to cook at home.
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