FFO

• The history of foodservice is closely associated with travel
• Throughout history, merchants have traveled extensively to trade with other nations or tribes
• There were also the religious pilgrimages to places of worship
• In the different places of destination, food and lodging have been provided to the travelers
• In the Middle Ages, 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
• 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
• In England during the industrial revolution, a certain Robert Owen provided meals at nominal prices in an effort to improve the working conditions of the workers in his mill
• Owen's feeding program was so successful that it spread throughout the civilized world
• Florence Nightingale pioneered in hospital foodservice during the Crimean War
• Alexis Soyer helped her 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 program
• In the 16th century, coffeehouses were established in the United States of America
• In Paris, France, it was only sometime in 1765 that the first restaurant was opened by a Frenchman named Boulanger
• In Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, thermopolia (singular thermopolium) were small restaurant-bars that offered food and drinks to customers
• 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 Pompeii, 158 thermopolia with a service counter have been identified across the whole town area
• Food catering establishment which may be described as restaurant were known since the 12th century in Hangzhou, a cultural, political and economic center during China's Song Dynasty
• Ma Yu Ching's Bucket Chicken House, was established in Kaifeng, China, is considered the world's oldest operating restaurant, first opening in 1153 AD during the Jing Dynasty, and still serving up meals today
• Hangzhou's restaurants blossomed into an industry catering to locals as well
• Restaurants catered 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 is recognized as the world's oldest eatery, established in 1725 and located in Madrid, Spain
• A young Francisco Goya worked there as a waiter whilst he was waiting to get a place at Madrid's
• The specialty of the Sobrino is cochinillo asado or roast suckling pig
• The term 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 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 introduced the hierarchy of the kitchen or better known as the "Brigade de Cuisine"
• Escoffier replaced the practice of service ä la francaise (serving all dishes at once) with service ä la russe (serving each dish in the order printed on the menu)
• 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
• The modern formal style of dining, where customers are given a plate with the food already arranged on it, is known as Service a la russe, as it is said to have been introduced to France by the Russian Prince Kurakin in the 1810s
• In the Philippines, foodservice existed as early as the time of the barangay system
• The Chinese were the forerunners of the developmental rudiments of the commercial type of foodservice