Dining Out

A Global History of Restaurants

Katie Rawson, Elliott Shore

• Publisher: Reaktion Books
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781789140576
• eBook ISBN: 9781789140958
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Social History
• Index: History

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.

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• 1 Eating Away from Home: The Long History of Restaurants
• 2 The Restaurateur and You: The Private and the Public in the Early French Restaurants
• 3 Elite Eating and the Democratized Restaurant
• 4 The Menu and the Chef
• 5 The Maître d’ and the Waitress
• 6 Road Food
• 7 The Machine in the Restaurant
• 8 Chains and Local Gems
• 9 Global Dining
• Afterword
• References
• Bibliography
• Acknowledgements
• Photo Acknowledgements
• Index