The World Eats Here: Amazing Food and the Inspiring People Who Make It at New York’s Queens Night Market

LOCAL AUTHOR

Since 2015, Queens Night Market has hosted independent vendors who sell food, art, and merchandise from all over the world. This book showcases some of these vendors’ foods and stories. It is as much a cookbook as it is a collection of migration stories and the hardships migrants face as they settle in a new country.

The book’s forty-three chapters are divided by geographic region. Each chapter is only a couple of pages long and features a vendor along with one or two recipes. Their stories tell about their experiences, mostly about the challenges they faced while initially making America their new home, and about their foods. While a lot of the recipes have been inspired from street foods, some of them hark back to family traditions. The accompanying color pictures and clipart enhance the narrative. Some of the recipes are easier to prepare, but there are others that require more than a couple trials to look and taste as the book describes.

While the experiences are unique, a common thread is the dedication each vendor has to family and food’s role in cementing familial bonds. It is heartwarming to realize that all these vendors are in Queens and that they willingly share their culture, weaving it into the American tapestry.