The World Eats Here

Description

Savour 88 recipes - and remarkable stories - from the immigrant vendor-chefs of NYC's first and favourite night market. On summer Saturday nights in Queens, scents from Moldova to Mexico whet families' appetites as they feast on food from over 90 countries. Welcome to the Queens Night Market. It's had well over a million visitors since 2015, and there's little wonder why: the food is delicious, the energy infectious - and the $6 price cap, irresistible. Many of the participating vendors are first- and second-generation immigrants living in Queens - the most diverse urban area on Earth. In THE WORLD EATS HERE, they share their prized recipes and tales of home. Though each is entirely unique, they all demonstrate the importance of one thing: food brings people together, and nowhere else could that be more true than at the Queens Night Market.

John Wang was born and raised in Texas, but his love affair with night markets started during the childhood summers he spent visiting Taiwan. A graduate of Yale's law and business school (and triple-major from the University of Michigan), John quit his high-paying attorney job after paying off his student loans and pursued his dream of creating what came to be the Queens Night Market. Now in its 5th year, the popular event averages over 12,000 visitors every summer Saturday - and has welcomed over a million visitors since its inception. Storm Garner is a multi-disciplined artist with a BA in Nonfiction Creative Writing from Columbia University and current student in Columbia's Oral History Master's Program. She created the video for the Queens Night Market's first Kickstarter campaign and the stories included in this book are derived from her long-form interviews with participating vendors for her thesis The Queens Night Market Vendor Stories Oral History Project.

An Amazon Best Book of 2020 One of Esquire's Ten Best Cookbooks of 2020 "Relive memories of the Queens Night Market. . . . Each of the recipes, and the accompanying profiles, is crammed with compelling details."--The New York Times "Food is the best way to understand the story of a person--where they came from, where they're going, what they hold dear. And the world comes to roost at the Queens Night Market."--Esquire "This extensive collection of recipes and stories from around the world will transport you."--Forbes "Charmingly designed and illustrated with a mix of photographs and hand-drawn depictions of ingredients and dishes, the effect is that of a cherished cookbook that has been handed from friend to friend. The magic of the event is really captured by this book."--Booklist "If you can't visit an outdoor food market. . . then you can pretend to be there by cooking your own takeout."--Fortune "Heirloom and street food recipes are the tempting stars of this cookbook. They reflect Wang and Garner's commitment to celebrating New York's ethnic diversity. . . . Garner's extended recipe introductions and interviews are resonant with poignant stories about the many challenges each chef has faced. . . . Their individual stories and food memories season the recipes with even more flavor and meaning."--Foreword Reviews, starred review "Along with the recipes are the voices of people from four continents, all bringing their dreams, culture and energy to their new home. Their stories are as nourishing as their food, giving hope that the American Dream is still achievable."--Shelf Awareness for Readers "This wildly diverse collection introduces a galaxy of flavors."--Publishers Weekly