History of Foodservice

• Foodservice


  The provision of prepared food and drink to customers
• The history of foodservice is closely associated with travel
• Merchants have traveled extensively to trade with other nations or tribes throughout history
• There were also religious pilgrimages to places of worship
• Food and lodging have been provided to travelers in the different places of destination
• The beginnings of foodservice was evident in the dining rooms of posting houses of the Romans, as well as the inns and taverns of the English people in the Middle Ages
• The Canterbury Inn had a kitchen measuring 45 feet in diameter, which provides food not only for the monks but also for the pilgrims who came to the abbey to worship
• In the Royal Households of England where numerous guests (150 to 200) were received daily, foodservice became a necessity
• A systematic recording of its expenses was made and compiled in the Northumberland Household Book which was considered the first known record book of scientific food cost accounting
• Robert Owen provided meals at nominal prices to improve the working conditions of the workers in his mill in England during the industrial revolution
• Owen's feeding program was so successful that it spread throughout the civilized world, hence he has been known as the father of modern industrial catering
• Florence Nightingale pioneered in hospital foodservice during the Crimean War and was efficient in organizing and managing the meals for the patients
• Alexis Soyer, a noted chef, helped Florence Nightingale in the establishment of a hospital diet kitchen
• The formal school feeding program was started in England by an Englishman named Victor Hugo
• The American school feeding programs were patterned after Hugo's
• Coffeehouses were established in the United States of America in the 16th century
• The first restaurant was opened by a Frenchman named Boulanger in Paris, France sometime in 1765
• In Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, thermopolia (singular thermopolium) were small restaurant-bars that offered food and drinks to guests
• A typical thermopolium had little L-shaped counters in which large storage vessels were sunk, which would contain either hot or cold food
• Their popularity was linked to the lack of kitchens in many dwellings and the ease with which people could purchase prepared foods
• Eating out was considered a very important aspect of socializing in Ancient Greece and Rome
• In Pompeii, 158 thermopolia with a service counter have been identified across the whole town area
• They were concentrated along the main axis of the town and the public spaces where they were frequented by the locals
• Food catering establishments which may be described as restaurants were known since the 12th century in Hangzhou, China during the Song Dynasty
• Ma Yu Ching's Bucket Chicken House was established in Kaifeng, China in 1153 AD during the Jing Dynasty, and is considered the world's oldest operating restaurant
• Hangzhou's restaurants blossomed into an industry catering to locals as well, catering to different styles of cuisine, price brackets, and religious requirements
• In the West, even when inns and taverns were known from antiquity, these were establishments aimed at travelers, and in general locals would rarely eat there
• Restaurants, as businesses dedicated to the serving of food, and where specific dishes are ordered by the guest and generally prepared according to this order emerged only in the 18th century
• Sobrino de Botín in Madrid, Spain, established in 1725, is recognized as the world's oldest eatery
• Part of the restaurant's folklore has it that a young Francisco Goya worked there as a waiter whilst he was waiting to get a place at Madrid's
• Specialty of the Sobrino is cochinillo asado or roast suckling pig
• Restaurant


  (from the French restaurer) first appeared in the 16th century, meaning "a food which restores" and referred specifically to a rich highly flavored soup
• The first restaurant in the form that became standard (guests sitting down with individual portions at individual tables, selecting food from menus, during fixed opening hours) was the Grand Taverne de Londres (the Great Tavern of London), founded in Paris in 1782 by Antoine Beauvilliers
• Restaurants became commonplace in French after the French Revolution broke up catering guilds and forced the aristocracy to flee, leaving a retinue of servants with the skills to cook excellent food
• Georges Auguste Escoffier, a French chef, restaurateur, and culinary writer, created the methods of what we now consider traditional French cuisine and notably created the hierarchy of the kitchen or better known as the "Brigade de Cuisine"
• Escoffier replaced the practice of service à la française (serving all dishes at once) with service à la russe (serving each dish in the order printed on the menu)
• Table d'hote menu


  Menu offering a complete meal with limited choices at a fixed price
• A la carte menu


  Menu where all the items are separate, meaning you have to order it to have it
• The most illustrious of all those restaurants in Paris in the 19th century was the Café Anglais (the "English Coffee Shop") on the Boulevard de Italiens
• Restaurants then spread rapidly across the world, with the first in the United States (Julien's Restarator) opening in Boston in 1794