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Bring the
cuisine of the 1964-65 New York World's Fair to your dinner table for
all to enjoy!
Today, we
take our local Chinese, Indian, or Greek restaurants for
granted... but
in the 1950s and 1960s, the most exotic form of food in a majority of
suburban communities was a pizza. Unless your family lived in
your
city's "Chinatown" or "Little Italy", your local restaurant menu
options were
normally limited to "American standards" like roast beef, chicken soup,
meatloaf, hot dogs, or hamburgers.
Dinners
at home were also limited to those same "regulars". You
weren't
likely to see Malaysian Chicken Satay, African Moamba, or Moroccan
Tagine on your table when you sat down to eat. Most families
had
little to no concept of what food from other countries was like...
unless your mother had a copy of your great-grandmother's recipe from
"the homeland"... and those recipes were usually reserved for rare or
special occasions.
Restaurants
and stands at the 1964/1965 New York World's Fair introduced authentic
international dishes to a country
which suffered from a very limited menu of dinner options. Visitors
to the Fair could dine on authentic Swiss Fondue, Indian Curry, or
Greek Arni Kapama in an authentic environment and while being served by
representatives of those nations.
After the Fair ended,
many of the people who came over to represent those countries stayed
and opened up businesses in the United States. Many of those
businesses were restaurants, which served as an initial foothold in the
United States for the expansion of the cuisines previously served at
the Fair.
Since then, international foods
have grown in popularity across the United States and are now enjoyed
in most communities. Just think of how easy it is to place a
take-out order at your local Indian or Chinese restaurant!
Some
of the restaurants at the Fair, hoping to share their country's culture
and wonders (or in the case of Sponsors, their product), published a
limited selection of their recipes in various books and free guides
during the two seasons of the Fair.
Some of these recipes are
now
available here for your culinary enjoyment.
The
recipes provided here free of charge are from many different sources.
Most are from out-of-print souvenir books or free recipe
cards
and pamphlets given out during the Fair. The goal is
to
provide access to the amazing dishes actually offered at the Fair and
ensure that those wishing to bring a bit of the culinary past back to
life have the ability to do so.
If
you have a recipe from a location at the 1964/1965 New York World's
Fair and would like to have it considered for inclusion in this free
online
recipe collection, please submit it using the 'contact' information
provided
on the Welcome page. In order to be considered, the recipe
must
be documented as having been authentic to the Fair (i.e. please include
some type of proof the specific recipe was actually served at the Fair)
or from a first-hand account of the recipe
(i.e. a World's Fair chef who created/cooked the dish at the Fair).
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