Have you heard the one about the American who travels to Italy looking for barbeque?

The World Expo (a.k.a. World’s Fair) is happening now through October 31 in Milan. It’s the first in Expo’s more than 200-year history to focus on food and culture, and examines our modern problem of feeding a population growing to 9 billion people by 2050. One hundred and forty-five countries have spaces in pavilions about 45 minutes outside of the city, built in styles specific to each country—Japan’s façade is interlocking wooden blocks, the United Arab Emirates’ pavilion was designed to evoke desert sands.

The James Beard Foundation, America’s premiere food education organization, helped the U.S. conceptualize its presence at Expo and created more than