Gastropolis: Food and New York City

Are you interested in the origins and story behind egg creams, bagels, and the distinctive New York City coffee cup? (Who isn’t!?) If so, head over to the New York Times blog the City Room where Anne Hauck-Lawson and Jonathan Deutsch, editors of the soon-to-be released Gastropolis: Food and New York City will be fielding questions this week.

The questions are already flooding in and the authors will be answering them beginning on Wednesday. We’ll post again when the answers go up but in the meantime here is a sampling of some of the questions being asked:

“The blue & white coffee cup with greek art / architectural designs is typical to NY. But how did it start?”

“How did ‘coffee regular’ come to mean coffee with cream and sugar in New York?”

“What has happened to bagels? When I grew up in NYC, they were much smaller and had a firm chewy texture and good flavor.”

“How did New York become so famous for the wonderful drink known as the ‘egg cream’? And why are there no eggs in it?”

“Can you kindly tell us about the different versions of the Ruben, and what is contents should be?”

“What defines New York pizza?”

“When did sushi catch on in New York and what were the forces behind its popularization?”