TinCow
01-10-2008, 00:41
I was reading a book on the history of London in the 19th Century during my commute home this evening when I came across a tidbit of information that totally floored me: restaurants did not exist in London until the mid-1800s and did not become common until the turn of the century. A quick check of Wikipedia when I got home corroborates this information, going so far as to say that restaurants did not exist anywhere in western civilization until the 18th century, when they began to appear in France.
This has me totally shocked and immensely excited. I have studied history from ancient times to modern, east to west, north to south, and the idea that restaurants were a recent invention never once occurred to me. Certainly, people ate outside the home, such as from street vendors, greengrocers, and butchers, but these places were designed to supply the public with food, not provide a destination for consumption. Similarly, while some inns and taverns have certainly served food throughout the ages, this was a side business. People went to inns to sleep and taverns to drink, the food was only a secondary matter, if it was present at all.
If true, I find this to be totally remarkable. I understand that a certain amount of public wealth is required to support a restaurant industry, but there have been many large cities throughout the history of western civilization that surely had enough of a wealthy populous to support them. How can it be that this most fundamental of institutions was never created before 18th century Paris?
It also makes me greatly optimistic about the future of civilization. I personally consider cuisine to be one of, if not the only, completely unifying aspects of human existence. Different peoples eat different foods in different styles and with different customs. That said, every last person on earth enjoys a good meal and has their mood improved by a satisfied stomach. If the route to a man's heart is through his stomach, perhaps the route to world peace is through global cuisine. Restaurants are always at the cutting edge of improvements in the quality and diversity of our various foodstuffs. These days, most people probably eat 'foreign' foods long before they ever visit a foreign nation. If restaurants truly are a new thing, then civilization has recently produced a new institution that has the potential to please every person on Earth and increase the understanding and interaction between distant cultures at the same time. I find this to be a very encouraging notion.
This has me totally shocked and immensely excited. I have studied history from ancient times to modern, east to west, north to south, and the idea that restaurants were a recent invention never once occurred to me. Certainly, people ate outside the home, such as from street vendors, greengrocers, and butchers, but these places were designed to supply the public with food, not provide a destination for consumption. Similarly, while some inns and taverns have certainly served food throughout the ages, this was a side business. People went to inns to sleep and taverns to drink, the food was only a secondary matter, if it was present at all.
If true, I find this to be totally remarkable. I understand that a certain amount of public wealth is required to support a restaurant industry, but there have been many large cities throughout the history of western civilization that surely had enough of a wealthy populous to support them. How can it be that this most fundamental of institutions was never created before 18th century Paris?
It also makes me greatly optimistic about the future of civilization. I personally consider cuisine to be one of, if not the only, completely unifying aspects of human existence. Different peoples eat different foods in different styles and with different customs. That said, every last person on earth enjoys a good meal and has their mood improved by a satisfied stomach. If the route to a man's heart is through his stomach, perhaps the route to world peace is through global cuisine. Restaurants are always at the cutting edge of improvements in the quality and diversity of our various foodstuffs. These days, most people probably eat 'foreign' foods long before they ever visit a foreign nation. If restaurants truly are a new thing, then civilization has recently produced a new institution that has the potential to please every person on Earth and increase the understanding and interaction between distant cultures at the same time. I find this to be a very encouraging notion.