Recently, Falafel has become popular among vegetarians and vegans, as an alternative to meat-based street foods. Even big companies like McDonald’s saw the falafel’s profit opportunity, it was included and served as “McFalafel” on its breakfast menu all over Egypt and Sweden.
In addition, the American grocery store chain “Trader Joe’s” saw the potential American market for falafel. They invented falafel Mix and published their own recipe to make savory falafel waffles, which I personally found it very interesting.
https://www.traderjoes.com/recipes/lunch/falafel-waffles
Furthermore, The Subway chain introduced the falafel as a vegetarian option on its menu in the U.S for a limited time. Falafel’s foray into subway stores was a logical step in the food’s journey into the American mainstream. But I think, falafel did not stay on their menu for a long time because of the way, the falafel was processed to be a commercial food, scarifying its quality, losing its authentic and ethnic taste during the Americanization of the falafel, to be fast-food mass production. In the end, the offered patties were slightly mushy and not tasty as the original should have been. (Ali,2012)
But still, Subway ‘s wide marketing campaign helped the falafel to become more widely used as a source of vegan protein cross cultures especially the American culture in particular.
In the United States, falafel’s versatility has allowed for the reformulating of recipes for meatloaf, sloppy joes and spaghetti and meatballs into vegetarian dishes. Knowing the assimilation of immigrants into American culture has been a constant feature of US history, falafel dish became popular in the U.S. It took the first place according to “the Best street food in New York City — from falafel to bagels “article, published on the famous news website CNN, (by Krisanne Fordham, Updated 25th September 2018).
Also, the New York Times praises the falafel for its “warm spice and crunch “(Kantor, 2002), where many articles discussed the falafel as a spread of the Middle Eastern culture, and where can you eat the best falafel in NYC, at The Falafel King of Astoria – Freddy Zeideia. (Kilgannon, 2016)
The spread of falafel attracted many writers to make the golden crispy balls, their main topic and seek people’s reviews about its taste. A writer even published a recipe of homemade falafel which you can try it yourself on the New York Times.