The Restaurants Book

Description

Is the restaurant an ideal total social phenomenon for the contemporary world? Restaurants are framed by the logic of the market, but promise experiences not of the market. Restaurants are key sites for practices of social distinction, where chefs struggle for recognition as stars and patrons insist on seeing and being seen. Restaurants define urban landscapes, reflecting and shaping the character of neighborhoods, or standing for the ethos of an entire city or nation. Whether they spread authoritarian French organizational models or the bland standardization of American fast food, restaurants have been accused of contributing to the homogenization of cultures. Yet restaurants have also played a central role in the reassertion of the local, as powerful cultural brokers and symbols for protests against a globalized food system. The Restaurants Book brings together anthropological insights into these thoroughly postmodern places. David Beriss is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of New Orleans and author of Black Skins, French Voices: Caribbean Ethnicity and Activism in Urban France. David Sutton is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Southern Illinois University. He is the author of Memories Cast in Stone: The Relevance of the Past in Everyday Life and Remembrance of Repasts: An Anthropology of Food and Memory. Both are published by Berg.

Amuse Bouche: Restaurants, Ideal Postmodern Institutions David Beriss and David Sutton SMALL PLATES * Chapter One: Tight Spaces and Salsa-Stained Aprons: Bodies at Work in American Restaurants, Karla Erickson * Chapter Two: Forming Family Identity in an American Chinese Restaurant, Michael Hernandez * Chapter Three: Tasting Wisconsin: A Chef’s Story, Amy Trubek MAINS * Chapter Four: Side Dish Kitchens: Japanese American Delicatessens and the Culture of Nostalgia, Christine Yano * Chapter Five: Familiarity, Ambience and Intentionality: An Investigation into Casual Dining Restaurants in Central Illinois, Derek Pardue * Chapter Six: Revolution is a Dinner Party: Cultural Revolution Restaurants in Contemporary China, Jennifer Hubbert * Chapter Seven: Ethnic Succession and the New American Restaurant Cuisine, Krishnendu Ray * Chapter Eight: From Khatchapuri to Gelfite Fish: Dining Out and Spectacle in Russian Jewish New York, Eve Jochnowitz * Chapter Nine: Daughters, Duty and Deference in the Franco-Chinese Restaurant, Winnie Lem * Chapter Ten: Authentic Creole: Tourism, Style and Calamity in New Orleans Restaurants, David Beriss * Chapter Eleven: Food, Family and Tradition in Northern Italy: The Rise and Fall of a Michelin-Starred Family Restaurant, Gerald Mars DESSERT * Chapter Twelve: Tipping: An Anthropological Meditation, David Sutton Digestif Michael Herzfeld.

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