Dining Out

History

The first places to “eat out” were in fact other people's homes. This can most clearly be seen in the rituals of courtly banquets. With the onset of modernization and increased geographical mobility, the need for places to eat outside the home became prevalent. Inns and local households designed to service travelers provided food along with basic lodging. Some of the earliest examples of places where food was consumed outside the home for pleasure, rather than necessity, were found in China during the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907). However, dining out for gratification had a slow start in Europe. Coffeehouses of the early seventeenth century were the first examples within Europe of places where those outside of the gentry went for the pleasure of eating outside of the home. In France, the café was a site for food and drink for all people, yet in England, the coffeehouse was mostly frequented by workers and businessmen. Street vendors also were among some of the first places to dine out, providing simple foods, such as fish and chips, for the English working class. Despite the places where food was consumed, the restaurant as we know it today is largely a French invention.

The word restaurant originally was not a place to eat but, as Rebecca L. Spang discovered, a thing to eat—a medical bouillon originating in the fifteenth century that was made to order for ailing patrons, that is, a restorative. Restaurants sprang up in France in the early eighteenth century, particularly in urban centers such as Paris, for individuals who were in poor health to display and share their frailty. Thus, restaurants from early on became places that emphasized atmosphere over food. With the advent of the Enlightenment, restaurants began to transform their selection of foods from just medical drinks to finer ones, such as cheeses and fruits, and by the end of the eighteenth century restaurants had become an institution in French public life. Stephen Mennell, Anne Murcott, and Anneke H. van Otterloo have argued that the restaurant was a product of the French Revolution—former chefs of the aristocrats created [Page 457]dining rooms and in turn opened up haute cuisine for all that could afford it. The restaurant of postrevolutionary France became the center of literary and artistic debate and also began to take on the French cultural personality. Guidebooks of the period created an imaginary France where all of one's desires could be fulfilled within the restaurant. American and British visitors defined dining out as particularly French. Tourists wrote in their diaries and in letters to friends not necessarily about the food but rather about the atmosphere of the French eatery.

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