Ten Restaurants That Changed America

Changed Americless 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 Soule 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 midcentury, on-the-road dining, only to be swept aside by McDonald's. Lavishly designed with more than 100 photographs and images, including original menus, Ten Restaurants That Changed America is a significant and highly entertaining social history."