Appetite City: A Culinary History of New York

I was expecting a lot more out of this book. In particular, more "why" and "to what end" and "with what consequences." Instead, Grimes' treatment of the history of NYC restaurants is, for the most part, a series of descriptions of a relatively small number of institutions. The beginning of the book starts well, talking about how the first modern restaurants start to appear, serving chops and oysters, and how French restaurant culture permeates the growing city. But then follows a tedious chronological review of the major high-end restaurants, ending with a rather self-serving description of food culture in the 1990s and 2000s, from the point of view of a NY Times restaurant reviewer. I would have much rather have seen a show more differently-structured book, perhaps with separate chapters each taking the entire 200+ years of history from different points of view. What happened to French restaurants over that 200 years? What happened to seafood? What happened to Chinese restaurants, or locally-grown produce (I happen to know that in the early 1900s, Chinese farmers in Queens used to grow vegetables for Chinatown!), or low-end New York food like pizza and hot dogs? That's the book I wanted to read. show less