(Editor's Note: This piece marks the beginning of CB's new section devoted to the food of Queens, New York and the people making it. We plan to file regular dispatches from the borough of global eats.) For many visitors to New York, the first sight of Queens comes from above, during the approach to JFK or LaGuardia, the city's two international airports. And the first thought, upon landing, is to keep going. How far is it, they wonder, to our room, and to the museums, theaters, shopping and sights? How long till we get to "the city"? For culinary explorers, Queens is not merely a way station, it is a destination in itself. The largest in area of the five boroughs of New York City, Queens is the home of well over two million people, half of them born outside the United States, speaking untold hundreds of mother tongues. During the course of a day, you might hear a dozen languages without breaking a sweat.

Tamales sold streetside by the basket are among our favorite treats in Queens. The countless kinds of ethnic cuisine found in the borough and the people that lovingly cook it are what make it great.

For those interested in visiting Tashkent or Samarkand, an easier trip might involve heading to the Rego Park and Forest Hills neighborhoods of Queens, home to much of the borough’s Central Asian Jewish diaspora. The neighborhoods comprise two main thoroughfares: 63rd Avenue, which changes to 63rd Street, and 108th Street. Both roads have a range of markets, restaurants and bakeries that serve local tastes and evoke places left behind. On one recent afternoon, I walked west on 63rd Avenue, away from Queens Boulevard, passing Public School 139 Rego Park, where parents and grandparents spoke Tajik, Mandarin, Arabic, Uzbek and Russian, crowding the street as they await their children’s dismissal from school.

In 1654, Dutch refugees, including 23 Jews, traveling on a French ship from Brazil, arrived in North America. The refugees set foot in Peter Stuyvesant’s New Amsterdam village, now called New York. Stuyvesant did not want to accept Jews, so he imposed trade, property and tax restrictions to stifle their advancement. Most of the Jewish community consequently returned to Amsterdam or left for the Caribbean, where they could live under more hospitable conditions with relatives. When Stuyvesant ultimately ceded control of New Amsterdam to the English, the small Jewish community that had remained swore allegiance to its new rulers and began to grow.

Our monthly series on migrant kitchens in Queens, NY, told through interviews, photos, maps and short films, takes us next to stories about the migration African-Americans to the borough. In the accompanying video, we look at the fascinating history of The Green Book, which between the 1930's and 60's provided African American travelers with a guide to hotels, restaurants, taverns, road houses, gas stations and homes where they could be sure to have a place to eat and rest without the threat of violence.