Ten Restaurants That Changed America - Hardcover

"Eminently readable...In a narrative that is intellectually delicious, Freedman presents a new way of thinking about 'you are what you eat.' This will appeal widely, engaging readers with both a casual or scholarly interest in food history and its influence on American culture in the late 19th and 20th centuries." -- Courtney McDonald - Library Journal "A robust historical trek through America's restaurant cuisine over three centuries... Delightfully illustrated with menus, photos, and other visual accompaniments, the narrative delves into each of the 10 restaurants' unique stories, beginning with America's first restaurant, Delmonico's ... Culinary historians, those besotted with food culture, and curious general readers will all find something of value in this well-researched, entertaining social and cultural history." -- Kirkus Reviews "The most important and entertaining book on the subject of food that I've read in years! Paul Freedman paints a portrait of a culture whose cuisine is only beginning to emerge. Witty, sensitive, surprisingly sensuous-more, please!" -- Molly O'Neill, author of One Big Table "Paul Freedman, one of the world's most learned food writers, has focused his extraordinary scholarship on a deconstruction of American dining from the corner deli to Chez Panisse. If you enjoy a brown paper bag of fried clams as much as a fourteen-course tasting menu, and ever wondered how it all came to be a part of daily American life, this is the book for you. Ten Restaurants That Changed America is the most enlightening kind of history, as Freedman takes a fresh look at what we take for granted and reveals the extraordinary matrix of cultural and culinary currents that have made it all possible." -- Frederick Kaufman, author of Bet the Farm: How Food Stopped Being Food "Pleasure without snobbery: Paul Freedman's book is itself exactly what the very best American food has always been." -- Joyce E. Chaplin, professor of early American history, Harvard University "Spanning over 100 years, Paul Freedman's engrossing and well-researched exploration of the restaurant as an American institution presents us with a gallery of unforgettable characters, iconic dishes, and unique places. Immigrants, entrepreneurs, chefs, and impresarios all loom large in a narrative that accurately tracks the historical changes in how we eat in public." -- Fabio Parasecoli, director of Food Studies Initiatives, The New School

Far more than simply a discussion of food, chefs and recipes, in Ten Restaurants That Changed America Paul Freedman creates a social history, examining how restaurants came to reflect class, gender, assimilation, mass consumption and culture in America. Ranging from the 1830s and the New York Steak House Delmonico's-which Freedman identifies as the first real American restaurant-to the current flowering of avant-garde cuisine, each chapter looks at fashions for different types of food from turtle soup to Caesar Salad. Ten Restaurants That Changed America is a must read for serious foodies.