often there are chains of fast food restaurants where food and drink are prepared in a central location and sent to the local restaurant where they are heated, cooked, assembled or kept cool and sold. this makes sure that the quality of the product is good the idea of fast food is associated to the development of cities, but there were examples in the past, too, in villages it was often street food sometimes sold at markets and it was of regional and seasonal origin and was different in every area. nowadays fast food is prepared on a large scale with standard ingredients, production and cooking methods