The Dairy Restaurant (Jewish Encounters Series)
by Ben Katchor
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"For The Dairy Restaurant, Ben Katchor retells the history of where we choose to eat--a history that starts with the first man allowed to enter a walled garden and encouraged by the garden's owner to enjoy it's fruits.In this brilliant, sui generis book, Ben Katchor illuminates the unique historical confluence of events and ideas that led to the proliferation of the dairy restaurant in New York City. In words and his inimitable drawings, he begins with Adam, entering Eden and eating the show more fruits therein. He examines ancient protocols for offerings to the gods and the kosher milk-meat taboo. He describes the first vegetarian practice, the development of inns offering food to travelers, the invention of the restaurant, the rise of various food fads, and the intersection between culinary practice and radical politics. Here, too, is an encyclopedic directory of dairy restaurants that once thrived in New York City and its environs, evoked by Katchor's illustrations of classified advertisements, matchbooks, menus, and phone directory listings. And he ends on an elegiac note as he recollects his own experience in one of these unique restaurants just before it disappeared--as have all the dairy restaurants in the New York metropolitan area"-- show lessTags
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Ben Katchor retells the history of where we choose to eat—a history that starts with the first man who was allowed to enter a walled garden and encouraged by the garden's owner to enjoy its fruits. He examines the biblical milk-and-meat taboo, the first vegetarian practices, and the invention of the restaurant. Through text and drawings, Katchor illuminates the historical confluence of events and ideas that led to the development of a “milekhdike (dairy) personality” and the proliferation of dairy restaurants in America, and he recollects his own experiences in many of these iconic restaurants just before they disappeared.
Fascinating story which I wish was actual history but have no way of knowing. Fever dream.
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10+ Works 1,191 Members
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