Dining Out: A Global History of Restaurants

Dining Out explores the global history of restaurants, from their origins in ancient China to the latest high-end dining experiences, covering various aspects such as architecture, technology, staffing, and ethnic cuisines.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 304 pages
Publication date: 15 July 2019
Publisher: Reaktion Books

Dining Out: A Global History of Restaurants Beyond White Tablecloths and Maître d's, presents restaurants as both businesses and venues for a range of human experiences, spanning from banquets in twelfth-century China to the medicinal roots of French restaurants. The origins of restaurants are not singular, and the history this book tells is diverse and fascinating. 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.

Weight: 1018g
Dimension: 254 x 201 x 23 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781789140576