UNC Press - Turning the Tables

376 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, 12 illus., notes, bibl., index

Cloth

ISBN 978-0-8078-3474-9

Published: May 2011

Paper

ISBN 978-1-4696-0980-5

Available: August 2013

Turning the Tables

Restaurants and the Rise of the American Middle Class, 1880-1920

By Andrew P. Haley

Awards & Distinctions

2012 James Beard Foundation Book Award in Reference and Scholarship

Finalist, 2012 International Association of Culinary Professionals Book Award in Culinary History

In the nineteenth century, restaurants served French food to upper-class Americans with aristocratic pretensions, but by the turn of the century, even the best restaurants cooked ethnic and American foods for middle-class urbanites. In Turning the Tables, Andrew P. Haley examines how the transformation of public dining that established the middle class as the arbiter of American culture was forged through battles over French-language menus, scientific eating, cosmopolitan cuisines, unescorted women, un-American tips, and servantless restaurants.

About the Author

Andrew P. Haley is associate professor of American cultural history at the University of Southern Mississippi.

Reviews

"Turning the Tables is an engaging read."
--LA Weekly blog

"Turning the Tables is a significant contribution to existing scholarship on class, culture, and consumption."
--Journal of Illinois History

"Scholars of food, culture, and the middle class will find this book useful . . . . It offers diverse sources and avenues for future exploration while establishing the prominence of middle-class dining culture in urban America."
--H-SHGAPE

"[A] very interesting and useful study of the evolution of public dining in the United States."
--Journal of American History

"Haley’s book reinforces the importance of consumption as a vehicle for class formation and does immeasurable service in exploring restaurants as one of the important sites where this occurred."
--American Historical Review

"Haley makes great use of an astonishing collection of sources, such as menus, trade journals, popular magazines, and cartoons, to produce an engaging history that sheds fresh light on the creation and meaning of the American middle class and that will encourage readers to think more deeply about their decision about where to go for dinner."
--The Historian