From the Family Kitchen by Gena Philibert Ortega

Author:Gena Philibert Ortega [Ortega, Gena Philibert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4403-1833-7
Publisher: F+W Media, Inc.
Published: 2012-03-31T04:00:00+00:00

YOUR ANCESTORS DINED OUT?

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Eating out is second nature in modern American culture. A Pew Research study found that a third of Americans eat out less than weekly, a third say they eat out weekly, and the final third say they eat out twice a week or more.19 While most of us eat out quite frequently, we probably can remember a time when eating out for our family was rare and considered a treat. Although for your own family, eating out may not have been the norm, that doesn’t mean that our ancestors never ate out. While restaurants in France in the eighteenth century catered to those in higher classes, early American restaurant food was served in taverns and inns to customers who were often men who were boarders, traveling through, or left to their own devices. These establishments provided a limited menu and served meals at set times.

Some of the more famous long-standing restaurants are found in New York City. Early residents ate at taverns and even oyster houses, but things changed when Delmonico’s opened in 1837. Delmonico’s originally opened as a pastry shop in 1827, and evolved into a restaurant after a fire destroyed the block where it was located. The menu from Delmonico’s in 1838 was eleven pages long and included French dishes with their English translations. Delmonico’s was a departure from other restaurants at this time and, like those early French restaurants, catered to a more exclusive clientele. But the restaurant also was different in how it did business. Diners could dine whenever they wished and didn’t have to wait for a set hour, which was the custom for other places serving food such as city hotels and diners. The restaurant became the place to eat in New York City during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Delmonico’s became so well-known that other restaurants started using the Delmonico name to cash in on its good reputation.

To get a sense of what other New York restaurants were serving during this time period, consider the September 8, 1856, menu from Congress Hall in Saratoga Springs, New York. The menu consisted of:

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