Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

  • Ten Restaurants That Changed America

  • By: Paul Freedman
  • Narrated by: Keith Szarabajka
  • Length: 13 hrs and 6 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (8 ratings)
Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Ten Restaurants That Changed America cover art

Ten Restaurants That Changed America

By: Paul Freedman
Narrated by: Keith Szarabajka
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Buy Now for £21.99

Buy Now for £21.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

Au Revoir to All That cover art
Barbecue cover art
The Last Chinese Chef cover art
Provence, 1970 cover art
Ancient Rome cover art
Food Americana cover art
Rome: The History of the Roman Empire and Its Emperors cover art
Mesoamerican Mythology cover art
Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD cover art
The Story of Philosophy cover art
Ancient Greece, Second Edition cover art
The Fate of Rome cover art
Babylon cover art
The Physician cover art
Iron, Fire and Ice cover art
The Horse, the Wheel, and Language cover art

Summary

From Delmonico's to Sylvia's to Chez Panisse, a daring and original history of dining out in America as told through 10 legendary restaurants.

Combining a historian's rigor with a foodie's palate, Ten Restaurants That Changed America reveals how the history of our restaurants reflects nothing less than the history of America itself. Whether charting the rise of our love affair with Chinese food through San Francisco's fabled the Mandarin, evoking the richness of Italian food through Mamma Leone's, or chronicling the rise and fall of French haute cuisine through Henri Soulé's Le Pavillon, food historian Paul Freedman uses each restaurant to tell a wider story of race and class, immigration and assimilation. Freedman also treats us to a scintillating history of the then-revolutionary Schrafft's, a chain of convivial lunch spots that catered to women, and that bygone favorite, Howard Johnson's, which pioneered on-the-road dining only to be swept aside by McDonald's.

Ten Restaurants That Changed America is a significant and highly entertaining social history.

©2016 Paul Freedman (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

What listeners say about Ten Restaurants That Changed America

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    5
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    4
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    4
  • 4 Stars
    3
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Feast of history and factoids

The sort of book you will keep stopping and saying 'listen to this!' to whoever is in the room with you. The terrapin was almost wiped out in america because of the turtle-soup craze! Hamburgers and hotdogs became the American eating-out standards because German refugees were the first immigrants to open cheap eateries! Italian food was considered unhealthy at the turn of the century because it had too much variety and vegetables! The most fascinating chapters for me where the ones on Shcraffts (catering to the first generation of 'respectable' women to have their own money to eat out with) Howard Johnsons (frozen supply chains and car culture), and the Mandarin (a gallop through the history of chinese immigration to the US). The later chapters- Le Pavillon, The Four Seasons, Chez Panisse- are less interesting as they are less culture oriented and more food-oriented, focusing on fine dining for the wealthy (just one middle-class chain or long-running neighbourhood eatery would have been good for the modern era) but thoruoughly enjoyed this whole book. The writer is a medieval historian with a food hobby, which gives this book both academic rigor but the liveliness of a passion project. Reading was clear and unobtrusive.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Loved every minute of this book.

A truly fascinating and absorbing book that was well researched, accessibly written and superbly read (by an actor from The Dark Knight no less). Will listen to this again…!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!