The highly managed communist food system in Soviet Russia offered a sharply contrasting approach to the American capitalist food system. In January 1959, Soviet official Anastas Mikoyan encountered the U.S. free enterprise food system during an unofficial visit. This picture of Mikoyan visiting a supermarket captured his curiosity at an open cooler filled with boxes of ice cream, signifying the availability of cheap, reliable electricity for refrigeration in stores and homes, the reliance of Americans on dairy as part of the “Standard American Diet,” and an economy thriving on imported sugar from plantations on Caribbean islands.