Peter Scholliers

Twenty-five Years of Studying un Phénomène Social Total

Abstract This survey focuses on food history writing on nineteenth and twentieth-century Europe, by using a selection of book introductions, colloquium papers, critical reviews, and papers from specialized journals. It provides a chronological survey that starts in the 1980s, and ends with recent trends. It explores tensions between socioeconomic traditions and ethnological approaches, looks for the cultural, linguistic and other turns, and puts forward as a promising field of study the integrated approach of the food chain.

The Diffusion of the Restaurant Culture in Europe in the Nineteenth Century: The Brussels Connection

This paper takes for granted the emergence of the modern restaurant in Paris in the 1780s, and uses the city of Brussels to investigate whether this type of restaurant spread easily throughout the 19th century, and to what extent the local eating-places have been influenced by this new way of eating. Making use of tax data, restaurants’ names, population registers, menu cards and travellers’ guides, the paper studies the coming-and-going of cooks and waiters, the features of the Brussels restaurants, and the characteristics of their cuisine. It appears that Brussels adopted the Parisian restaurant quite early, and that this culture trickled down to other, more modest eating-places in the city. The paper suggests that Brussels played an important role in the geographical and social popularising of the (concept of) restaurant in Belgium and Europe.