Here the manufacturing processes for Swift's products, including Swift's Premium Frankfurters, were demonstrated.
Other exhibits included information dealing with recipes and the use of inexpensive cuts of meat, the relationship between the raiser of livestock and the consumer, and a marionette show dramatizing typical scenes in retail shops and the latest in merchandising ideas.
by Arie van Dort
Swift's International Cooking Competition
Swift invited the chefs of each foreign restaurant to bring a native buffet dish to its pavilion on July 18. One-hundred-fifty guest pavilion managers, maîtres d'hôtel and press representatives attended the 1:00 P.M. buffet luncheon.
The chefs sampled an American luncheon of cantaloupe filled with fresh fruit, cold meats, frankfurters, hamburgers, baked beans, Swift's premium ham with champagne sauce, salad, ice cream, cake and tea or coffee.
The waiters then presented the chef's international masterpieces in alphabetical order and the guests sampled the fare.
- The Winners
- Argentina: B. Joffre – Empenada (Argentine meat pie)
- Belgium: Lucien Coutant – Glacee Malinoise (capon in aspic with goose liver dressing)
- Brazil: George Assandri – Brazileria (turkey Brazilian style)
- Chile: Jesus Cohalla – Arrollado (rolled stuffed flank steak)
- Cuba: Jose Penna – Arroz con Pollo (chicken with rice)
- Czechoslovakia: Karel Zima – Husa, Knediky, Zeli (roast goose, sauerkraut and dumplings)
- Denmark: Emilie Anderson - Hans Christian Anderson's Ugly Duckling
- Finland: Rysto Nyholm – Munakokkeli (scrambled eggs with reindeer meat)
- France: Marius Isnard – Selle d'Agneau Pavilon de france (saddle of lamb)
- Hungary: Geza Kiss – Kocsonyazott Libacomb (legs of goose a la Gellert)
- Italy: Vito Cedrini – Polianca Alla Duca D'Alba (capon, Duke of Alba)
- Poland: Jan Kozerski – Polish Ham Paste, Lubomirski Style
- Rumania: Victor Neagu – Chicken in Cream with Mushrooms, Moldavian Style
- Sweden: Hans Kegik – Woodcok a la Creve Bernadotta
- Switzerland: Hermann Rusch – filet de Boeuf en Pate (fillet of beef in crust)
- Turkey: Hamdi Ozkaptan – Cherkez Tavouk (diced chicken, Turkish style)
- Venezuela: Ana Torres – Venezuelan Hallacas
- U.S.S.R.: Feodor Kirichenko – Porosinonok Zalivnoy s Hrenom E Smetanov (young suckling pig in aspic)
- Columnist Charles Grutzner loved "The tantalizing smell of porcine products coming from the Swift smokehouse which, for some unexplained reason is shaped like a great futuristic airliner."
- Perhaps no industrial pavilion provided a more colorful and press-worthy opening than Swift. Charles H. Swift, chairman of the board, officially opened the pavilion by lighting the wood fire at the bottom of the glass smokehouse. The company invited fifteen boys from the Children's aid Society Newsboys House and thirteen boys and girls from the Hudson Guild. The special guests from New York's famed Hell's Kitchen included Harry (the Greek) Harelambdis, Eli (Fat Stuff) Poiner, Johnny (Mumps) Gallagher, Raymond (Freckles) Billings, and Billy (Short Legs) Gaffney. The young guests were quite blunt: "No speeches. We want hot dogs!"
- Upton Sinclair, author of The Jungle, the turn of the century expose of Chicago's meatpacking industry, toured the pristine Swift pavilion and watched as a dozen of young ladies prepared bacon and sausage.
- Harold Wilson, Swift's exhibit manager, held the first "wake," a frankfurter party, for the 1939 season in The Great Ham Hall for his one-hundred employees on October 25.
- The pavilion managers and company executives insisted that frankfurters be referred to as "red hots" rather than the unflattering "hot dog."
- Cora and Bill Baird produced the puppet show presented in the pavilion's lobby.
- Smith sealed the hams prepared in the pavilion in special orange and blue wrappers, the fair's colors, and sold them as souvenirs.
- At a competition between armed forces chefs cooking Swift hams on field stoves, judges award the army chefs the better of the two entries. However, the navy chefs won a consolation prize for the best baked pie.
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