Appetite City: A Culinary History of New York Critique - Term Paper Example

Task NYC History Introduction This paper seeks to analyze the historical book Appetite A Culinary History of New York that heavily leans on developments in Newyork city and state with a sneak preview on some events that were involved heavily in the transformation of this American city and state (Reitano, p, 12). The book highlighted below will try to encapsulate on the historical events and processes that propelled the state and its city towards modernity in matters culinary. It will also look into ways that the events and processes influenced the general American populace and more so, on the societal entity (Grimes, p.2). Appetite City: A Culinary History of New York: This book has its basis on NYC, which is reputed to be the greatest restaurant city in the world. William Grimes pens down this book leaning heavily on the historical heritage of Newyork’s culinary culture. Appetite city, a book by former restaurant critic in the Newyork times, Grimes William, leads a reader in the ultimate historical journey of NYCs culinary culture. The book begins with a glimpse of the era where oyster bars and chophouses were dominant in Newyork (Grimes, p.4). A transformation shift saw this change where Newyork developed to become the world’s culinary capital in modern era. The book also flips through the unique era when turtle and oysters were the most popular delicacies in the city’s cuisine, then to the era of 50-cent Italian and French table d’hotes that were beloved of the American ‘Bohemians’ to the emergence of the Times square-where entertainment and food developed a partnership that has lived to this day (Delaney, p.21). Grimes enhances his tale with rare menus, photographs, menu cards and other illustrations and curios which he uses to describe dining styles, restaurants and dishes that succeed one another in historical perspectives and panorama (Grimes,p.7). The historical perspectives and panorama also included the deluxe parlours for ice cream that characterized the 1850s, the boisterous beans-and-beef joints situated on Newspaper Row and characterizing the 1890s. It also encompasses the assembly-line automat experience, the unique intercontinental restaurants in the world fair staged in 1939 and the multi-faceted New York of today. The book is rich with anecdotes, incidents, and unique characters and personalities in revelation to the means in which restaurants and eateries mirrored the magnified forces that were influencing and shaping NYC. It is a book written as a chronicle of NYCs transformation, which saw the city grow from a Dutch village at the remotest edge of wilderness to a complex and diverse world restaurant city (Lewis, p.45). Today’s NYC is characterized by the existence of entrepreneurial superchefs and this vivid change in the city’s culinary history places it as the most modern but rarely the final act in the ever dynamic culinary saga of NYC’s bottomless appetite. Of importance is the description penned down by a respectable food writer, which describes the shift from bewildering food maze traditions and cultures, traced from early markets to present-day molecular gastronomy-affected-restaurants. Grimes sets to clarify an existing notion that NYC was not an influential restaurant city globally. He shows the restaurant-free NYC streets of the 1900s to the wide-open kitchens of the 2nd millennium and on a fun side, how a restaurant afterthought grew to a complex and most distinguished restaurant city globally. It also portrays intensity in conflicts and fun in the different periods experienced by NYC and its populations that have lived through these variant periods. The paradox makes for a unique food history that has been meticulously and empirically researched on. In the book, Grime portrays tales of big money spenders, their outsized appetites, and the manner in which Newyork high end populations made spectacles for themselves in the fast-changing society characterized by the existence of celebrity restaurateurs, locally made delicacies, and the city’s rapidly changing delicacy tastes (Fisher, p.13). Newyork’s characteristic as a fancy delicacy capital began in early 1800s with the opening of a pastry shop at the Manhattan’s foot run by two brothers, Pietro Delmonico and Giovanni Delmonico, who hailed from Ticino, an Italian speaking division of Switzerland. In this regard, the book’s culinary history covers to extensive measures eateries and eating habits of Newyorkers in the latest half of Newyork’s 400-year existence. The book chronicles the city’s colorful and unforgettable culinary experiences and history in which it notes the city’s pioneer takeout restaurant, the Eastern Coffee House which in 1913, got to advertise in the Newyork Post. There is description of the plentiful seafood in NYC and the enormous Hudson River Sturgeon plus oysters as big as the dinner plates in the Staten Island bays, which were commonly preferred as the working-class diets (Grimes, p.4). Grime traces the restaurant movements towards the northern direction in Manhattan, in unison with population movements, and how this contributed to the arrival of Italian foods in 1880s attributed to the migration boom of Italian immigrants (Weil, p.65). Modern coffee shops were established in early 1900s. The book puts this feature into perspective through accompaniment of pictures that demystify tales of developers or owners of classy Newyork restaurants and eateries such as the Horn and Hardart Automat,21Club,Longchamps,Schrafft’s and recently The Russian Tea room and the Windows on the World. According to Grimes, Paris has excellent French Restaurants (Green span, p.10); Tokyo has excellent Japanese eateries and Restaurants, Madrid has excellent Spanish Restaurants but goes on to concede that, there exists no city like Newyork that offers numerous national modes of cooking inclusive of all the price ranges. It was not always like this as Grime points out. It was not until 19th Century that Brooklyn and Manhattan culinary ventures extended to taverns and boardinghouses. This profusely illustrated synopsis veers into variant directions, from the oyster houses proliferation in 1800s to the initial formula for Chop Suey. Grimes looks at all the direct high points-the automat, Delmonico’s, Le Pavillon and also highlights on the forgotten spots that include the Forum of the Twelve Caesars, an enormous theme restaurant from the same entity that owned Four Seasons. Grime gets individualistic in the concluding chapter, describing the 1990s and 2000s Scenarios from his personal vanguard perception as the Restaurant critic and analyst for the respected newspaper, Newyork times. Grime admits that an excellent food critic has to have certain set of standards and knowledge base in the quest to make excellent decisions as pertaining food issues (Beard, p.37). There is definitely a long-term cycle to the restaurant phenomena in Newyork city (O’neill, p.34). Certain cultures and characteristics are evident in the modern city, for example, Street foods, Green Markets, oysters, and The China town (Beard, p.27). The book also points to the fact that food can be classified as an art form which starts out as a workday cultural expression form. One ought to think of food as a painting or sculpture. This hardly compares to dough or bread. Cooking is one of the most appropriate expression forms and some argue it is an affront to the Art world’s Picassos. This is a meaningless disparity. Grime emphasizes on the need to look back at the Renaissance age where people responsible for constructing the fountains in the tapestries and public squares were skilled labourers. There was no evident distinction between craft and high art. Artists as geniuses came much later as being inspired privately. This scenario as replicated in the food industry has frustrated even food historians who try to write pieces on various food phenomena. The book acknowledges that there are megatrends in the food industry attributed to globalization, which has so far reshaped the present scenarios and continues to reshape the future. This means that other cultures and food trends have been exposed to the outside world. For example, french food trends and culture has established itself and has reigned supreme but things are now different due to globalization and the technological trend that food industry has adopted. Grime admits that this trend is exciting since people have the capability of transporting ingredients globally (Grimes, p.100). The sense of regional distinctiveness in culinary matters that preceded industrialization or food manipulation before the 2nd world war eruption in USA wiped clean cultural food memories unlike in France or Italy. America is going back to where it belonged in the culinary culture. Many immigrant culinary cultures the dishes deemed traditional meant poverty and poor and the immigrants wanted to embrace modernity, which looked like the sole source of abundance. This made the immigrants to dismiss their cooking styles to embrace the American life (Grimes, p.34). By encompassing renowned entity establishments that include Le Pavillon and Delmonico’s plus Bowery Restaurants, where meals cost pennies, Grimes explores ways the restaurant setup mirrored the bigger forces that were fashioning Newyork and this gives the book an original and delicious account of America’s magnified city. Conclusion A closer look at the analyzed book above portrays a progressive transition of the American city of Newyork from going through the diverse eras of culinary developments and social events. We have also seen conservatism through to the phase of modernity and general societal change. Globalization and technology have been highlighted by Grimes as the main factors that have contributed to modern day exchange of culinary cultures and that America is slowly reverting to the booming culinary culture it enjoyed before the outbreak of World War 2. n Works cited Beard, James. American Cookery. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2010. Delaney, Samuel. Times Square Red, Times Square Blue, New York: New York University Press: 1999. Grimes, William. Appetite City: A Culinary History of New York. First Edition. North Point Press: 2009 Reitano, Joanne. The Restless City: A Short History of New York from Colonial Times to the Present, Second Edition: Routledge, 2006. Fisher, Kennedy. The Art of Eating. Hoboken: Wiley, 2004. Greenspan, Dorie. Around My French Table. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010. Lewis, Edna. A Taste of Country Cooking. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976. O’Neill, Molly. New York Cookbook. New York: Workman Publishing, 1992. Safran Foer. Eating Animals. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2009. Weil Francois. A History of New York. New York, Columbia University Press: 2004. Read More