The Restaurants Book

Ethnographies of Where we Eat

David E Sutton editor Dr David Beriss editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Published:1st Dec '07

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

The Restaurants Book cover

Also available in hardback, 9781845207540 GBP55.00 (December, 2007)

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. This book brings together anthropological insights into these thoroughly postmodern places.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.

The volume succeeds in making readers understand that restaurants do more than simply feed people - they transmit culture, encourage socialization, and express the values of a particular place. Reading this book makes it obvious that we do not choose to eat at a restaurant just because we like the food. Virginia Moench, Gastronomica The book has left me hungry for more such 'snapshots' of food and culture. Society for the Anthropolgy of Food and Nutrition (Online Review)

ISBN: 9781845207557

Dimensions: 234mm x 156mm x 14mm

Weight: 392g

256 pages