An invitation from the Bethany Retirement Community to us:

Many of Chicago’s greatest or most unusual restaurants are “no longer taking reservations,” but they’re definitely not forgotten. From steakhouses to delis, these dining destinations attracted movie stars, fed the hungry, launched nationwide trends and created a smorgasbord of culinary choices. Noted author Greg Borzo dishes out course after course of fondly remembered fare, from Maxim’s to Charlie Trotter’s and Trader Vic’s to the Blackhawk. Continue reading →

Presented by Joe Weintraub, PhD

Paris à Table: 1846 is the first English translation of an essential text in the literature of gastronomy. Written by the journalist and critic, Eugène Briffault, the book takes readers from the opulence of a meal at the Rothschilds’ through every social stratum down to the student on the Left Bank and the laborer eating on the streets. The author surveys the restaurants of the previous generation and his own–from the most elegant to the lowest dive–along with the eating habits of the bourgeoisie, the importance and variety of banquets, and even the plight of “people who do not dine,” offering the reader, according to Le Monde, “the richest view of Balzac’s time seen from the table.” Continue reading →

Anthony Buccini, PhD

Whether one prefers américaine or armoricaine is immaterial: both names are inappropriate and lack historical basis or even plausibility. — Alan Davidson

There are a great many famous dishes whose names defy legitimate historical or linguistic explanation. Of these, there are two primary sorts: 1) those with names that are in a basic sense completely transparent but, despite that superficial transparency, remain obscure, in that we have no idea why (and often also when and by whom) that name was applied to the dish; 2) those with names that from a linguistic standpoint are (or seem to be) opaque and resistant to linguistically sound etymologising. Continue reading →