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With a little foreknowledge, this need not be. Nearly all the better things at the fair are free, and those that are not cost little. Actually, the biggest money drain is the high cost of drinks. In Switzerland the gutters are full of kirsch, but at the Swiss chalet a petit shot costs $1.25. Cocktails and highballs are rare at $1, more common at $1.50.
Food is expensive too, and sometimes it is very good. Entrees at the major restaurants average $6. The most elegant room is the Toledo, downstairs in the Spanish pavilion, where the chef of Madrid's Jockey Club somewhat incongruously serves French cuisine.
In Denmark's beautiful small building of latticed woods and spacious glass, a superb Danish smorgasbord is served for $6 a person. Sweden presents its own excellent smorgasbord for the same price. At the Indonesia pavilion, the Kambing Masak Bugis and Ajam Pang-gang cost $6.50. From Mexico (Came Asada Tampiquena, $7) to India (Chicken Masala Jaipure, $5.75), the fair abounds in places where one can eat well and pay well.
But nothing much is missed if all of this is skipped. There is no lasting culinary memory to be taken from the fair, as there was in 1939 when the Pavilion's Henri Soulé made his U.S. debut at the French pavilion. Moreover, great Curnonskian meals absorb too much time. The smartest way to eat is to bring your own sandwiches or buy a quick one in a place like Liebmann Breweries' oldtime tavern, where a fast beer and a ham on rye cost $1.10.
There are many other places to eat rapidly without surrendering to the hamburger and hot-dog stands, most notably in the International Plaza, a busy jumble of closely packed shops and food counters. The corner-lot boomtime atmosphere is a pleasant change from the more ordered pace of the rest of the fair. Ecuadorian banana dogs cost 50¢, Norwegian loganberry punch 25¢, and a 99¢ Belgian waffle covered with fresh whipped cream and fresh strawberries can be a meal in itself. Peptic athletes can eat Egg Foo Yumburgers, Fishwiches, and frankfurters packed in cornmeal, and wet it all down with Philippine beer. The Luxembourg, a restaurant the size of a closet, serves all the sausage-loaded country onion soup you can eat for $2.
Traps & Troubles. There are a few flypaper palaces that have the bads and should be noted for it. The Hall of Education is full of plastic flower exhibits and other flotsam that has nought to do with education. The Better Living and Transportation & Travel pavilions are both traps. Their Kafkan walls are lined with booths from which predator salesmen claw for the jugular. The pavilion of American Interiors is only a big furniture showroom that charges 50¢ admission. The Underground House ($1) is the pavilion of American Interiors six feet under. Hollywood ($1.25) is a stockade full of tacky TV and movie sets, plus a museum that misspells the names of stars (Tallulla Bankhead).
The so-called Lake Amusement sec tor is merely a disaster area. Its trouble is simple: the amusements the area offers are almost all less amusing than the free shows of the industries. In 1939 this amusement area was four times as large, and there were nudes there. This time there are a few trained porpoises and the flume ride.