The Week of Mar 18 2013 Hidden History

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Reading Forgotten Foods of New York

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Mon, Mar 18, 2013

Forgotten Foods of New York

by Anne Noyes Saini
From bread lines to automats, milkmen to soda fountains, five senior citizens look back on the NYC culinary traditions of their youth.
Photo courtesy George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress
Left: A pushcart fruit vendor at the Fulton fish market (Photo by Gordon Parks,  courtesy Library of Congress); Above right: Men waiting in a bread line on the Bowery (Courtesy George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress).

In this ongoing audio project, longtime New Yorkers recall family cooking traditions, foods from home that were lost to immigration, and NYC's bygone era of milkmen, wandering produce sellers, automats, and soda fountains. These stories celebrate the food traditions that have fallen by the wayside, as well as the elderly voices among us who keep them alive in their memories. More subtly, the series conveys the experience of aging and immigration in a city driven by relentless change.

Clockwise from top left: Hilda Baumol, Paul J. Hintersteiner, Hilda Baumol & Monte Malach, Monte Malach, Paul J. Hintersteiner & Debra Klaber, and Olga Colon. (Photos by Emon Hassan)

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When she is not editing economics books, Anne Noyes Saini covers food culture, immigration, and the elderly in New York City—especially in Queens, where she lives. She has contributed to The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, WNYC-FM, WBUR-FM, and City Limits magazine.

Emon Hassan, Narratively's Director of Video & Multimedia, is a New York-based filmmaker and photographer. He is also a contributor toThe New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, andThe Atlantic. You can follow him on Twitter, Facebook & Google+.

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