Ten Restaurants That Changed America by Paul Freedman (Review)
Readers cannot browse the internet without encountering listicles—the portmanteau from “list” and “article.” The prevalence of the top-10 lists is so common that you might pick up Paul Freedman’s book and expect a beefed-up list that expounds on the best restaurants in America. Yet a best-restaurants book is not Freedman’s objective, and his effort produces a far more interesting and edifying result that is worth anyone’s time.
I found that I took few notes during the first half of the book. Looking back, I think this oversight on my part is because Freedman sets the stage for the complexities that emerged from the early days of restaurants in America. He lends insight into the social history of the United States interpreted through the context of dining outside the home. His list includes the following:
Delmonico’s (New York City)
Antoine’s (New Orleans)
Shrafft’s (New York)
Howard Johnson’s (National Chain)
Mama Leone’s (New York City)
The Mandarin (San Francisco)
Sylvia’s (New York City)
Le Pavillon (New York City)
Chez Panisse (Berkeley)
The Four Seasons (New York City)
The first three restaurants seemed to lay the groundwork as America slowly transitioned from home dining to restaurant dining, but the chapter on Shrafft’s—a candy store opened in 1898 by Frank Shattuck that transitioned to lunches under his sister, Jane—began revealing the trends that we see in dining habits today.
The pace toward modern dining accelerated with Howard Johnson’s. I was surprised that Freedman did not include McDonald’s in his book, but he explained how Howard Johnson’s was the vanguard of McDonald’s and fast-food dining. Howard Johnson’s was also the chapter that really highlighted for me a reoccurring theme of Freedman’s book: society’s change has as much to do with rise and fall of restaurants as the food itself.
Prior to Freedman’s movement to America’s modern trends, he explained how French food was the foundation of fine dining in the United States. This reality was not only true for Delmonico’s and Antoine’s; French food was the benchmark by which people determined excellence. That said, United States dining included injections of local influence even from the beginning. While French epicureans may not have appreciated early American offerings, the trend of fusing food with varied cultures has a long legacy that Freedman explores with excellence.
In addition to the foundations of American restaurants, here are some of the other observations I found interesting:
Mama Leone’s – “That Italian food was able to rise to the restaurant stratosphere is an unusual accomplishment. For nearly a hundred years a seemingly fixed hierarchy placed French cuisine at the top, defining culinary distinction with Italian, Chinese, and other ‘ethnic’ restaurants considerably lower, providing inexpensive and not particularly prestigious food.”
The Mandarin – It’s somewhat amusing that the earliest Chinese restaurants in America were all-you-can-eat meals. I would not have guessed this still-present trend began so long ago.
The Mandarin – It was interesting to read how ethnic foods became popular. Groups of Bohemians would start the trend. Sophisticates found amusement in “slumming” to try the dishes, followed by mainstream residents and tourists popularizing the trend. This occurred with Italian food, Chinese food, and even the black communities in Harlem.
Sylvia’s – Freedman noted that both the Mandarin and Sylvia’s owed a great deal of success to their owners’ vivacious personality. It’s interesting how one person’s charisma makes such a difference for enjoying the food. The connection between people and food surely is an intimate one that either enhances or detracts from the food and the enjoyment of it.
Sylvia’s – Freedman’s book—particularly the chapter on Antoine’s and Sylvia’s—had thoughtful observations on race and culture as they intersect with food. The way America perceives people of different backgrounds, and their language, and their epicurean heritage all had a way of blending. One example Freedman highlighted a trend in 1920s cookbooks for white authors to adopt the voice of black, female cooks. The result in “Aunt Priscilla in the Kitchen” was an “instruction for making a Mexican American dish, described by a white woman, and voiced in a pseudo-black dialect.” Certainly, this is racist stereotyping, but it also reflects the adoption and integration that has historically taken place and how food introduces people to cultures—or at least a literal and figurative taste—that they might not otherwise experience.
Sylvia’s – Freedman offered insightful commentary on race, poverty, and health in this chapter. He contrasted the diets in the north with those in the south and how societal trends undermined southern food remaining broadly available.
Le Pavillon – Henri Soulé, creator of Le Pavillon in NYC, complained in America that “everything here is fresh all year around and, naturally, is never quite fresh, if you see what I mean.” My sense is that restaurants have improved on this front by incorporating more local and seasonal fare. I wrote this note before reading Freedman’s chapter on Chez Panisse, which gave a helpful juxtaposition between the trends of the past with the farm-to-table approach of today.
Four Seasons – Quote by Joe Baum—creator of the Four Seasons—“people don’t go to fancy restaurants because they are hungry, but because they are attracted to the excitement and entertainment.”
Four Seasons – The Four Seasons’ concept of seasonal dining is the ancestor of today’s farm-to-table development. Just because something was in season did not mean that it was local. Imported goods were still a central part of the menu in the late 50s.
Chez Panisse – Freedman uses Chez Panisse to describe how we eat today. Chef Alice Waters used three connected ideas to shape her restaurant. They are ideas taken for granted today that we’re vanguard in the 70s:
“Primary ingredients must be of high quality.
Quality must be defined in terms of freshness and naturalness.
Freshness and naturalness are to be thought of in terms of seasonality, location, and small-scale, non-industrial agricultural practices.”
While not wholly attributable to Alice Waters, she is a central figure to implement these changes that are at the heart of the rise of American food. The ideas of local, seasonal ingredients prepared in open kitchens with a fusion of culinary traditions were and are central characteristics of Chez Panisse.
Chez Panisse – “All revolutions have to create a grim image of the past or the status quo against which they are revolting. Every “Renaissance” has to manufacture its own “Gothic” period or “Dark Ages” that came before it, and the American food transformation that began in the early 1970s is no exception. Especially in the world of food writing, and awful and homogenized past has to serve as the insipid prologue for the glorious revelation that leads to how we eat in an enlightened manner today...And yet in those supposedly dark days [1950s and 1960s; see James Beard and Julia Child’s influence], people of discernment thought they were living in an age of unparalleled food enthusiasm and sophistication.”
When I started Ten Restaurants, it seemed as if the scope and significance of the book was small. Yet Freedman was building a strong foundation that supported ideas and history of great weight. Whether it’s for the history or the food, Freedman’s Ten Restaurants is a worthwhile read. I give it a full endorsement and hope you enjoy the book as much as I did.
