Andrew P. Haley, "Turning the Tables: Restaurants and the Rise of the American Middle Class, 1880-1920" (UNC Press, 2011)

UNC Press Presents Podcast · Sep 7, 2012 · 50m

Restaurants almost feel indigenous to American landscape, whether you're weaving past them by the thousands when you're driving through a metropolis on the East or West Coast or whether, like me, you find yourself in a small town in the middle of the Midwest, which still manages to boast one Indian restaurant, two Middle Eastern restaurants, and a handful of Mexican and Chinese restaurants. But did you ever wonder just how someone living in Athens, Ohio, could end up eating seaweed egg drop soup on a Tuesday night in September? How exactly did we, as Americans, come to embrace such a rich and…