Rebecca L. Spang is Professor of History and Director of the Center for Eighteenth-Century Studies at Indiana University. She is the author of Stuff and Money in the Time of the French Revolution (Harvard). Adam Gopnik is a staff writer at the New Yorker and the New York Times bestselling author of ten books, including, most recently, The Real Work: On the Mystery of Mastery. A Chevalier of the Legion d’honneur, Gopnik has won three National Magazine Awards and the George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting.

Spang has written an ambitious, thought-changing book. Until now, most restaurant history was pop history, filled with canned ‘Eureka!’ moments and arch legend-making… Spang’s book is an example of the new ‘niche’ history, and, like the best of such books, it is rich in weird data, unsung heroes, and bizarre true stories about the making of familiar things.

Rebecca L. Spang is Professor of History and Director of the Center for Eighteenth-Century Studies at Indiana University. She is the author of Stuff and Money in the Time of the French Revolution (Harvard). Adam Gopnik is a staff writer at the New Yorker and the New York Times bestselling author of ten books, including, most recently, The Real Work: On the Mystery of Mastery. A Chevalier of the Legion d’honneur, Gopnik has won three National Magazine Awards and the George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting.

Spang has written an ambitious, thought-changing book. Until now, most restaurant history was pop history, filled with canned ‘Eureka!’ moments and arch legend-making… Spang’s book is an example of the new ‘niche’ history, and, like the best of such books, it is rich in weird data, unsung heroes, and bizarre true stories about the making of familiar things.

Rebecca L. Spang is Professor of History and Director of the Center for Eighteenth-Century Studies at Indiana University. She is the author of Stuff and Money in the Time of the French Revolution (Harvard). Adam Gopnik is a staff writer at the New Yorker and the New York Times bestselling author of ten books, including, most recently, The Real Work: On the Mystery of Mastery. A Chevalier of the Legion d’honneur, Gopnik has won three National Magazine Awards and the George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting.

Spang has written an ambitious, thought-changing book. Until now, most restaurant history was pop history, filled with canned ‘Eureka!’ moments and arch legend-making… Spang’s book is an example of the new ‘niche’ history, and, like the best of such books, it is rich in weird data, unsung heroes, and bizarre true stories about the making of familiar things.