Dining Out: A Global History of Restaurants

by Katie Rawson, Elliott Shore

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.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Food

304 pages, Hardcover

Published August 15, 2019

Reviews

[Matthew Mashek · Rating 4 out of 5]

I initially picked this book because I had to do a book review on a book that had anything to do with food service. I am into history so I figured this would be a good pick.

First the negatives. Most of the summaries of the book that I read criticize other restaurant history books as focusing too much on French cuisine while stating that this book goes beyond that. While the book does "go beyond" French restaurants it also focuses a seemingly majority of it's length on French restaurant history. I'd say 50% of the book is French, 40% American/Japanese, and the last 10% the rest of the world. The last chapter was by far the best in my mind, delving into the global interconnectedness of various "ethnic" foods. The layout of the pages was incredibly haphazard as well, as if no one edited it. Some pages had a half page picture with text and the opposing page would have a half page of text and blank space. While this isn't a huge deal it made the book feel a little unprofessional. On top of this, many pictures seemed to be only tangently related to the topic. One example is when talking about a specific type of Japanese cultural topic they just slapped a random Japanese-related picture. It was as if they wanted a picture so they just googled "Japanese restaurant" and picked the first picture that popped up regardless of it's actual relatedness to the topic besides generic Japanese stuff. Another odd instance was a picture of the hand written notes of a famous Spanish chef nearly 20 pages before he is even introduced, and on a page about Japanese restaurants. Completely out of place.

Despite all of the above, the book had a lot of information and was a very interesting, easy read. I think more of the global view and hitting more different cultures would add much more to it. That said I still gave it 4 stars and would recommend it to anyone interested in the food service industry (obviously) or even just a history buff (like myself).

[May Borati · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m writing my thesis on food anthropology and read this as part of my research. It’s very well written and full of relevant and interesting information, if a little narrow in its explorations to be as “global” as the title suggests. As mentioned by another reviewer, the editing work is shoddy - not only when it comes to page layout, the book is also riddled with typos - which brings its rating down a bit. Having said that, I really enjoyed reading it and it barely felt like an academic work (which I mean as a very serious compliment) and would recommend it to anyone interested in history and gastronomic culture.

[Vidu]

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