Rebecca L. Spang

A fascinating look at the very unusual origins of something we all take for granted: restaurants. Spang, in this fun (but occasionally dense) bit of popular history, goes back to original sources to identify the restaurant's beginnings in 18th Century France — not during the Revolution, as is sometimes reported, but decades prior. As it turns out, before a "restaurant" was a place to eat it was a thing to eat. Specifically, it was a type of broth or consommé that was, according to cutting-edge 18th Century science, believed to be the ideal treatment for a common catchall malady of the time, "weakness of chest."

As it happened, the broth, which could be prepared in advance and kept warm, enabled restauranteurs to be open for extensive hours instead of simply serving food at a specific hour as existing establishments did at the time. "If eighteenth-century models of physiology had singled out the soufflé for its restorative powers, the restaurant could not have taken the form it did," Spang writes. Once the restaurateurs were open serving their consommés, they gradually began to expand their menus (including inventing the concept of the menu) until they reached truly gargantuan proportions. Spang chronicles all of this and more, including the collision of the new restaurants with the fast-shifting sensibilities of Revolutionary France and how the rest of the world saw this peculiar innovation when it was discovered (especially after the end of the Napoleonic Wars).

For those with an interest in the topic and a general knowledge of the period, this is a superb read that will change your perception of something extremely ordinary. Spang doesn't write down to a popular audience, but neither is this a ponderous academic tome laden with jargon. If the book sounds interesting to you, I highly recommend it.… (mais)

Contradicts the myth that the restaurant is a product of the French Revolution and analyzes the political rhetoric surrounding the restaurant (and its roles in the development of nouvelle cuisine and gourmandism) from the opening of the first salon de restaurateur in the 1760s through the mid-1800s. Interesting story with plenty of food for thought on the social aspects of food. A bit repetitive at the line level, which is not a big problem in the early part of the book, when the author is delivering her main argument. It becomes an issue toward the end, once the restaurant is firmly established as an institution and the author seems to have little left to say about it, but can't figure out how to conclude.… (mais)