As a lover of both food and history, I’ve almost inevitably been drawn into the wonderful Searching For… series on CNN. Pioneered by the always-charming Stanley Tucci in searching for Italy, new seasons have been taken over by Eva Longoria as she explores her own roots in Mexico and Spain and her Francophilia in France. Part travelog and part cooking show, each episode follows its host around a specific region of that season’s featured country as they visit cutting-edge restaurants and talk history and culture with local friends old and new. It’s a light and airy experience that makes for easy watching and more interesting historical tidbits than one might expect, even for an experienced student of the subject. So it was that I was intrigued by an assertion that came from Longoria’s companions on a riverboat restaurant floating down the Seine. As they wined and dined their way through seven courses meant to convey the history of French fine dining, they talked about how the French Revolution had led to the birth of the modern restaurant. As the story goes, all the private chefs of the nobility who fled France or were executed during those tumultuous decades found themselves unemployed, but with only one real trade they could pursue. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a whole host of restaurants were opened in Paris as these chefs “democratized” gourmet cuisine and began serving the public. It’s a nice, neat tale that has one of those “You never knew just how impactful this famous event was” effects, but I was almost immediately suspicious. First, I was skeptical that these chefs who had formerly served haute cuisine to France’s upper crust would have created truly democratic establishments for the general public; even if not fit for a truly royal table, such food would have been quite expensive to source and prepare, and it’s hard to imagine the masses being able to afford these chefs’ prices. Second, a throw-away line just seconds later seemed to invalidate the entire premise, as Longoria mentioned that the first restaurants had appeared in Paris two decades earlier in the 1760s. Was this story, then, an instance of public memory and the desire for neat and tidy narratives overriding authentic interpretation?
This isn’t the first time I’ve experienced such impulses. Back in college, one of the first experiences that would drive me to pursue a more global history of the 19th century—and ultimately that of the British Empire—was seeing the endless claims in the American Civil War community that Jonathan Letterman, Medical Director for the Union Army of the Potomac, had invented the system of triage. He had most certainly not, and systems of ambulances and prioritizing battlefield treatment of the wounded had been in existence in Europe, particularly in the French army, since the Napoleonic Wars. Everyone always wants their own story to be special and to pique interest. So what’s the deal with the French Revolution and restaurants?
As it turns out, almost exactly the same as with Letterman and triage, but in reverse. If using a broad definition of a place where one might purchase and consume food outside of their own dwelling, “restaurants” have existed for millennia. While it is unclear if it was more restaurant or simply communal dining space, excavations in the ancient Sumerian city of Lagash in what is now southern Iraq have revealed the remains of a structure with benches, ovens, and standardized dining ware from the third millennium BC. In the classical world, what the Romans called thermopolium (and what look for all the world like counters with modern soup warmers in their archaeological remains) served hot meals to streetside patrons in what was reminiscent of modern fast food or the timeless street food cart. And of course, taverns and inns throughout the middle ages had served food and alcohol to patrons both in residence and not. If it were to mean anything, then, this French Revolutionary explosion would have to mean specifically fine dining restaurants with the modern system of wait staff, menus, and the like. The actual origin of these establishments was indeed in the 1760s, particularly Mathurin Roze de Chantoiseau’s 1765 eatery that served various bouillions billed as restoratives (to evade restrictions on types of food that could be served by individuals who were not members of certain guilds). The first elite cooks to open restaurants of their own also preceded the Revolution, and the Provost of Paris officially legitimized these institutions in 1786, three years before the fall of the ancien regime. Not only that, but there had already been restaurants of this style in London before this period! Thus the role of unemployed chefs in the wake of the French Revolution was one simply of quantity, and I find it hard to believe that the form wouldn’t have expanded on its own. Indeed, Searching for France skipped over what was arguably the biggest effect of the period, as the abolition of guilds during the Revolution eliminated all those restrictive regulations that had previously constrained aspiring vendors and restaurateurs.
It is perhaps unsurprising that three members of the French and American culinary elite might focus in on the popularization of the gourmet cuisine they were currently enjoying, but this whole saga can serve as a reminder that history is seldom as clean as we might like it to be, and sometimes what one might expect to have a large impact may not actually have affected the flow of culture quite as strongly. In this age of misinformation, over-simplification can be just as dangerous as intentional fabrication, and where history is concerned, the details must always get in the way of a good story.