The Invention of the Restaurant: Paris and Modern Gastronomic Culture

by Rebecca L. Spang

Book Overview

Why are there restaurants? Why would anybody consider eating to be an enjoyable leisure activity or even a serious pastime? To find the answer to these questions, we must accompany Rebecca Spang back to France in the 18th century, when a restaurant was not a place to eat but a thing to eat: a quasi-medicinal bouillon that formed an essential element of pre-Revolutionary France's nouvelle cuisine. This is a book, about the French revolution in taste...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674000641
• ISBN13: 9780674000643
• Release Date: March 2000
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 325 Pages
• Weight: 1.36 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Illuminating and fascinating

This is an eminently readable piece of scholarlship. The information is well-organized, well-expressed, and utterly fascinating. Congratulations to the author. Well done!