Download or read book The Invention of the Restaurant written by Rebecca L. Spang and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-14 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Louis Gottschalk Prize Winner of the Thomas J. Wilson Memorial Prize “Witty and full of fascinating details.” —Los Angeles Times Why are there restaurants? Why would anybody consider eating alongside perfect strangers in a loud and crowded room to be an enjoyable pastime? To find the answer, Rebecca Spang takes us back to France in the eighteenth century, when a restaurant was not a place to eat but a quasi-medicinal bouillon not unlike the bone broths of today. This is a book about the French revolution in taste—about how Parisians invented the modern culture of food, changing the social life of the world in the process. We see how over the course of the Revolution, restaurants that had begun as purveyors of health food became symbols of aristocratic greed. In the early nineteenth century, the new genre of gastronomic literature worked within the strictures of the Napoleonic state to transform restaurants yet again, this time conferring star status upon oysters and champagne. “An ambitious, thought-changing book...Rich in weird data, unsung heroes, and bizarre true stories.” —Adam Gopnik, New Yorker “[A] pleasingly spiced history of the restaurant.” —New York Times “A lively, engrossing, authoritative account of how the restaurant as we know it developed...Spang is...as generous in her helpings of historical detail as any glutton could wish.” —The Times

Download or read book The Invention of the Restaurant written by Rebecca L. Spang and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Looks at the social, political, and intellectual history of dining out, food culture, and gastronomy in Paris.

Download or read book Dining Out written by Katie Rawson and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2019-08-12 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A global history of restaurants beyond white tablecloths and maître d’s, Dining Out presents restaurants both as businesses and as venues for a range of human experiences. From banquets in twelfth-century China to the medicinal roots of French restaurants, the origins of restaurants are not singular—nor is the history this book tells. Katie Rawson and Elliott Shore highlight stories across time and place, including how chifa restaurants emerged from the migration of Chinese workers and their marriage to Peruvian businesswomen in nineteenth-century Peru; how Alexander Soyer transformed kitchen chemistry by popularizing the gas stove, pre-dating the pyrotechnics of molecular gastronomy by a century; and how Harvey Girls dispelled the ill repute of waiting tables, making rich lives for themselves across the American West. From restaurant architecture to technological developments, staffing and organization, tipping and waiting table, ethnic cuisines, and slow and fast foods, this delectably illustrated and profoundly informed and entertaining history takes us from the world’s first restaurants in Kaifeng, China, to the latest high-end dining experiences.

Download or read book The Invention of the Restaurant written by Rebecca L. Spang and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the origins of the restaurant to eighteenth-century France, describing how Parisians invented the art of eating out, and in the process, changed their own social life and that of the world.

Download or read book The Restaurant written by William Sitwell and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-04-09 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: AS READ ON BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK. The fascinating story of how we have gone out to eat, from the ancient Romans in Pompeii to the luxurious Michelin-starred restaurants of today. Tracing its earliest incarnations in the city of Pompeii, where Sitwell is stunned by the sophistication of the dining scene, this is a romp through history as we meet the characters and discover the events that shape the way we eat today. Sitwell, restaurant critic for the Daily Telegraph and famous for his acerbic criticisms on the hit BBC show MasterChef, tackles this enormous subject with his typical wit and precision. He spies influences from an ancient traveller of the Muslim world, revels in the unintended consequences for nascent fine dining of the French Revolution, reveals in full hideous glory the post-Second World War dining scene in the UK and fathoms the birth of sensitive gastronomy in the US counterculture of the 1960s. This is a story of the ingenuity of the human race as individuals endeavour to do that most fundamental of things: to feed people. It is a story of art, politics, revolution, desperate need and decadent pleasure. Sitwell, a familiar face in the UK and a figure known for the controversy he attracts, provides anyone who loves to dine out, or who loves history, or who simply loves a good read with an accessible and humorous history. The Restaurant is jam-packed with extraordinary facts; a book to read eagerly from start to finish or to spend glorious moments dipping in to. It may be William Sitwell’s History of Eating Out, but it’s also the definitive story of one of the cornerstones of our culture.

Download or read book Food in the United States 1890 1945 written by Megan J. Elias and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2009-06-08 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No American history or food collection is complete without this lively insight into the radical changes in daily life from the Gilded Age to World War II, as reflected in foodways. From the Gilded Age to the end of World War II, what, where, when, and how Americans ate all changed radically. Migration to urban areas took people away from their personal connection to food sources. Immigration, primarily from Europe, and political influence of the Caribbean, Latin America, and the Pacific brought us new ingredients, cuisines, and foodways. Technological breakthroughs engendered the widespread availability of refrigeration, as well as faster cooking times. The invention of the automobile augured the introduction of "road food," and the growth of commercial transportation meant that a wider assortment of foods was available year round. Major food crises occurred during the Depression and two world wars. Food in the United States, 1890-1945 documents these changes, taking students and general readers through the period to explain what our foodways say about our society. This intriguing narrative is enlivened with numerous period anecdotes that bring America history alive through food history.

Download or read book The Restaurant written by William Sitwell and published by Diversion Books. This book was released on 2020-04-21 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The acclaimed food critic’s two-thousand-year history of going out to eat, from the ancient Romans in Pompeii to the luxurious Michelin-starred restaurants of today. Starting with the surprisingly sophisticated dining scene in the city of Pompeii, William Sitwell embarks on a romp through culinary history, meeting the characters and discovering the events that shape the way we eat today. The Daily Telegraph restaurant critic and famously acerbic MasterChef commentator, Sitwell discusses everything from the far-reaching influences of the Muslim world to the unintended consequences of the French Revolution. He reveals the full hideous glory of Britain’s post-WWII dining scene and fathoms the birth of sensitive gastronomy in the counterculture of 1960’s America. This is a story of human ingenuity as individuals endeavor to do that most fundamental of things: to feed people. It is a story of art, politics, revolution, desperate need, and decadent pleasure. The Restaurant is jam-packed with extraordinary facts and colorful episodes; an accessible and humorous history of a truly universal subject.

Download or read book Ten Restaurants That Changed America written by Paul Freedman and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2016-09-20 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Featuring a new chapter on ten restaurants changing America today, a “fascinating . . . sweep through centuries of food culture” (Washington Post). Combining an historian’s rigor with a food enthusiast’s palate, Paul Freedman’s seminal and highly entertaining Ten Restaurants That Changed America reveals how the history of our restaurants reflects nothing less than the history of America itself. Whether charting the rise of our love affair with Chinese food through San Francisco’s fabled Mandarin; evoking the poignant nostalgia of Howard Johnson’s, the beloved roadside chain that foreshadowed the pandemic of McDonald’s; or chronicling the convivial lunchtime crowd at Schrafft’s, the first dining establishment to cater to women’s tastes, Freedman uses each restaurant to reveal a wider story of race and class, immigration and assimilation. “As much about the contradictions and contrasts in this country as it is about its places to eat” (The New Yorker), Ten Restaurants That Changed America is a “must-read” (Eater) that proves “essential for anyone who cares about where they go to dinner” (Wall Street Journal Magazine).

Download or read book A Revolution in Taste written by Susan Pinkard and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book traces the development of modern French habits of cooking, eating, and drinking from their roots in the Ancien Regime. Pinkard examines the interplay of material culture, social developments, medical theory, and Enlightenment thought in the development of French cooking, which culminated in the creation of a distinct culture of food and drink.

Download or read book A Bite Sized History of France written by Stéphane Henaut and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2018-07-10 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A "delicious" (Dorie Greenspan), "genial" (Kirkus Reviews), "very cool book about the intersections of food and history" (Michael Pollan)—as featured in the New York Times "The complex political, historical, religious and social factors that shaped some of [France's] . . . most iconic dishes and culinary products are explored in a way that will make you rethink every sprinkling of fleur de sel." —The New York Times Book Review Acclaimed upon its hardcover publication as a "culinary treat for Francophiles" (Publishers Weekly), A Bite-Sized History of France is a thoroughly original book that explores the facts and legends of the most popular French foods and wines. Traversing the cuisines of France's most famous cities as well as its underexplored regions, the book is enriched by the "authors' friendly accessibility that makes these stories so memorable" (The New York Times Book Review). This innovative social history also explores the impact of war and imperialism, the age-old tension between tradition and innovation, and the enduring use of food to prop up social and political identities. The origins of the most legendary French foods and wines—from Roquefort and cognac to croissants and Calvados, from absinthe and oysters to Camembert and champagne—also reveal the social and political trends that propelled France's rise upon the world stage. As told by a Franco-American couple (Stéphane is a cheesemonger, Jeni is an academic) this is an "impressive book that intertwines stories of gastronomy, culture, war, and revolution. . . . It's a roller coaster ride, and when you're done you'll wish you could come back for more" (The Christian Science Monitor).

Download or read book From Canton Restaurant to Panda Express written by Haiming Liu and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2015-09-09 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The story of Chinese Americans through the lens of food. From Canton Restaurant in 1849 to Panda Express today, Chinese food history in America spans over 150 years. Chinese 'Forty-niners' were mostly merchants and restaurateurs who migrated here not to dig gold but to do trade. Racism against the Chinese slowed down the growth of the Chinese restaurant business in the late 19th century, but it made a rebound in the format of chop suey. From 1900 to the 1960s, chop suey as imagined authentic Chinese food attracted numerous American customers including Jewish Americans as its collective fan. Then the real Chinese food such as Hunan, Sichuan or Shanghai cuisine replaced chop suey houses in the 1970s following the arrival of new Chinese immigrants after immigration reform in 1965. Those regional-flavored Chinese restaurants were brought in and established by immigrants from Taiwan rather than mainland China. As Chinese restaurants in America turned Chinese in flavor, P.F. Chang's and Panda Express rose fast in the 1990s to meet the need of constantly changing and often multi-ethnically blended eating habits of American customers. Chinese food in America is a fascinating history about both Chinese and Americans. Embedded in this history is the story of human migration, culinary tradition, racial politics, ethnic identity, cultural negotiation, Chinese Diaspora and transnational life, and Chinese cuisine as a global food. Though a scholarly work, this book aims at all readers who are interested in food history and culture"--Provided by publisher

Download or read book The American Way of Eating written by Tracie McMillan and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-02-21 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A journalist traces her 2009 immersion into the national food system to explore how working-class Americans can afford to eat as they should, describing how she worked as a farm laborer, Wal-Mart grocery clerk, and Applebee's expediter while living within the means of each job.

Download or read book The Table Comes First written by Adam Gopnik and published by Knopf Canada. This book was released on 2011-10-25 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Transplanted Canadian, New Yorker writer and author of Paris to the Moon, Gopnik is publishing this major new work of narrative non-fiction alongside his 2011 Massey Lecture. An illuminating, beguiling tour of the morals and manners of our present food manias, in search of eating's deeper truths, asking "Where do we go from here?" Never before have so many North Americans cared so much about food. But much of our attention to it tends towards grim calculation (what protein is best? how much?); social preening ("I can always score the last reservation at xxxxx"); or graphic machismo ("watch me eat this now"). Gopnik shows we are not the first food fetishists but we are losing sight of a timeless truth, "the table comes first": what goes on around the table matters as much to life as what we put on the table: families come together (or break apart) over the table, conversations across the simplest or grandest board can change the world, pain and romance unfold around it--all this is more essential to our lives than the provenance of any zucchini or the road it travelled to reach us. Whatever dilemmas we may face as omnivores, how not what we eat ultimately defines our society. Gathering people and places drawn from a quarter century's reporting in North America and France, The Table Comes First marks the beginning a new conversation about the way we eat now.

Download or read book Food in Time and Place written by Paul Freedman and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2014-11-24 with total page 421 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Food and cuisine are important subjects for historians across many areas of study. Food, after all, is one of the most basic human needs and a foundational part of social and cultural histories. Such topics as famines, food supply, nutrition, and public health are addressed by historians specializing in every era and every nation. Food in Time and Place delivers an unprecedented review of the state of historical research on food, endorsed by the American Historical Association, providing readers with a geographically, chronologically, and topically broad understanding of food cultures—from ancient Mediterranean and medieval societies to France and its domination of haute cuisine. Teachers, students, and scholars in food history will appreciate coverage of different thematic concerns, such as transfers of crops, conquest, colonization, immigration, and modern forms of globalization.

Download or read book The Book of Eating written by Adam Platt and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2019-11-12 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A wildly hilarious and irreverent memoir of a globe-trotting life lived meal-to-meal by one of our most influential and respected food critics As the son of a diplomat growing up in places like Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan, Adam Platt didn’t have the chance to become a picky eater. Living, traveling, and eating in some of the most far-flung locations around the world, he developed an eclectic palate and a nuanced understanding of cultures and cuisines that led to some revelations which would prove important in his future career as a food critic. In Tokyo, for instance—“a kind of paradise for nose-to-tail cooking”—he learned that “if you’re interested in telling a story, a hair-raisingly bad meal is much better than a good one." From dim sum in Hong Kong to giant platters of Peking duck in Beijing, fresh-baked croissants in Paris and pierogi on the snowy streets of Moscow, Platt takes us around the world, re-tracing the steps of a unique, and lifelong, culinary education. Providing a glimpse into a life that has intertwined food and travel in exciting and unexpected ways, The Book of Eating is a delightful and sumptuous trip that is also the culinary coming-of-age of a voracious eater and his eventual ascension to become, as he puts it, “a professional glutton.”

Download or read book Stuff and Money in the Time of the French Revolution written by Rebecca L. Spang and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2015-01-06 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Louis Gottschalk Prize, American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies A Financial Times Best History Book of the Year A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year Rebecca L. Spang, who revolutionized our understanding of the restaurant, has written a new history of money. It uses one of the most infamous examples of monetary innovation, the assignats—a currency initially defined by French revolutionaries as “circulating land”—to demonstrate that money is as much a social and political mediator as it is an economic instrument. Following the assignats from creation to abandonment, Spang shows them to be subject to the same slippages between policies and practice, intentions and outcomes, as other human inventions. “This is a quite brilliant, assertive book.” —Patrice Higonnet, Times Literary Supplement “Brilliant...What [Spang] proposes is nothing less than a new conceptualization of the revolution...She has provided historians—and not just those of France or the French Revolution—with a new set of lenses with which to view the past.” —Arthur Goldhammer, Bookforum “[Spang] views the French Revolution from rewardingly new angles by analyzing the cultural significance of money in the turbulent years of European war, domestic terror and inflation.” —Tony Barber, Financial Times

Download or read book Burn the Ice written by Kevin Alexander and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-07-14 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Inspiring"—Danny Meyer, CEO, Union Square Hospitality Group; Founder, Shake Shack; and author, Setting the Table James Beard Award-winning food journalist Kevin Alexander traces an exhilarating golden age in American dining—with a new Afterword addressing the devastating consequences of the coronavirus pandemic on the restaurant industry Over the past decade, Kevin Alexander saw American dining turned on its head. Starting in 2006, the food world underwent a transformation as the established gatekeepers of American culinary creativity in New York City and the Bay Area were forced to contend with Portland, Oregon. Its new, no-holds-barred, casual fine-dining style became a template for other cities, and a culinary revolution swept across America. Traditional ramen shops opened in Oklahoma City. Craft cocktail speakeasies appeared in Boise. Poke bowls sprung up in Omaha. Entire neighborhoods, like Williamsburg in Brooklyn, and cities like Austin, were suddenly unrecognizable to long-term residents, their names becoming shorthand for the so-called hipster movement. At the same time, new media companies such as Eater and Serious Eats launched to chronicle and cater to this developing scene, transforming nascent star chefs into proper celebrities. Emerging culinary television hosts like Anthony Bourdain inspired a generation to use food as the lens for different cultures. It seemed, for a moment, like a glorious belle epoque of eating and drinking in America. And then it was over. To tell this story, Alexander journeys through the travails and triumphs of a number of key chefs, bartenders, and activists, as well as restaurants and neighborhoods whose fortunes were made during this veritable gold rush--including Gabriel Rucker, an originator of the 2006 Portland restaurant scene; Tom Colicchio of Gramercy Tavern and Top Chef fame; as well as hugely influential figures, such as André Prince Jeffries of Prince's Hot Chicken Shack in Nashville; and Carolina barbecue pitmaster Rodney Scott. He writes with rare energy, telling a distinctly American story, at once timeless and cutting-edge, about unbridled creativity and ravenous ambition. To "burn the ice" means to melt down whatever remains in a kitchen's ice machine at the end of the night. Or, at the bar, to melt the ice if someone has broken a glass in the well. It is both an end and a beginning. It is the firsthand story of a revolution in how Americans eat and drink.