Dining and Social Positioning From Delmonico’s to the Four Seasons with Paul Freedman

CULINARY HISTORIANS OF NEW YORK AND MOUNT VERNON HOTEL MUSEUM & GARDEN PRESENT

Dining and Social Positioning From Delmonico’s to the Four Seasons, with Paul Freedman

In late 19th-century New York, fashionable restaurants were places to see and be seen and to demonstrate gastronomic knowledge and social distinction. Delmonico’s, considered the first fine-dining restaurant in the United States, served as a stage for the enactment of such high-society rituals. Special dinners were extravagant and well-publicized occasions, and regulars at Delmonico’s were considered de facto members of the city’s elite. Paul Freedman will discuss the way upscale restaurants in New York changed over the years, while remaining places to display status in various industries or to exhibit social standing.

Samples of their iconic New York restaurant dishes will be served by Delmonico’s.

Paul Freedman is a history professor at Yale University. He is the author of Out of the East: Spices and the Medieval Imagination (Yale University Press, 2008) and the editor of Food: The History of Taste (Thames & Hudson, 2007). His book Ten Restaurants That Changed America will be published in September.

Location:
Mount Vernon Hotel Museum & Garden
417 E. 61st Street (between 1^st Avenue and York)
New York, New York 10065
http://www.mvhm.org/

Time:
6:30 pm Check-in and reception | 7:00 pm Lecture

Fee:
$25 CHNY and MVHM Members
$22 CHNY and MVHM Senior & Student Members
$40 Non-Members and Guests
$10 Full-time students with ID

To buy tickets securely online: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/producer/7199

For reservations to be paid at the door, for members only, email RSVP at http://www.culinaryhistoriansny.org/contact.html

PLEASE RESERVE BY MARCH 29