The Automat: The Amazing Story of America's Five-Cent Cafeteria

Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Radio

Milk Street Radio

Food, Arts

4.4 • 2.8K Ratings

🗓️ 22 March 2024

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Before McDonald’s or KFC, there was the Horn and Hardart Automat—a cafeteria-style restaurant where you could buy everything from creamed spinach to lemon meringue. This week, filmmaker Lisa Hurwitz tells us the story of the rise and fall of the Automat—with a little help from Mel Brooks. Plus, Emiko Davies takes us to Venice’s favorite wine bars; we whip up Greek Meatballs with Tomato Sauce; and Dan Pashman makes the case for a better vegetable sandwich. (Originally aired May 27th, 2022.)

Get the recipe for Greek Meatballs with Tomato Sauce here.

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Transcript

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0:30.0	Hey this is Chris Kimball and I need your help. We're working on a story about the battles we all have in our home kitchens.
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1:18.7	Come. Please include your name and where you're calling from, Christopher Kimball.
1:36.0	Before McDonald's or KFC, there was the Horn and Hardart Automat, a cafeteria
1:41.8	style restaurant where you could buy everything from cream spinach to
1:45.0	meat pie by putting just a few nickels into a slot. A new documentary film called The Automat
1:51.6	features interviews with some of Horn and Hardard's biggest fans,
1:54.9	including Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Colin Powell, Carl Reiner, and Mel Brooks.
2:00.8	Here's Mel Brooks in the film.
2:03.0	Of course, when you say Automat or Horn and Harder,
2:07.0	very few people know what you're talking about.
2:10.0	But one of the greatest inventions and insane centers of paradise,
	...

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