Tastes and Traditions uncovers how menus—those fleeting records of meals—capture changing tastes, social values and cultural identities across centuries. Praised as a “dazzling volume” (Darra Goldstein), “brilliantly illustrated and argued” (Dan Bender), and “a work of art, stimulating the imagination as well as the appetite” (Jeffrey Pilcher), the book whets readers’ appetites to savour dining ephemera as cultural history at work.
Tastes and Traditions: A Journey Through Menu History, Nathalie Cooke, Reaktion Books
Follow Nathalie on IG
Excerpt from Tastes and Traditions: A Journey Through Menu History:
“Through asking questions about the role of the selection process in menu development, in Tastes and Traditions I approach the menu as a cultural artefact,” says author Nathalie Cooke. “What is a menu? What information does it contain? What does it do? … I argue that, more than being merely descriptive lists, menus are motivating, affective documents, mustering a range of resources to move their readers—not simply to purchase but also to care, often deeply, about their choices.”
Menu Image: Picadilly Club, Mount Royal Hotel, Montreal. Circa 1930s.
“A very handsome New Year’s Eve menu from Montreal’s Piccadilly Club, likely during the 1930s, dazzles with sophistication and promise. The cover profiles a dapper man in a scarf and top hat, escorting an elegantly attired partner on his arm. The four-toned illustration reveals Montreal as a trend-setting urban metropolis surveyed by Apollo readying his bow. Yet there were few surprises on the menu for those with dainty and worldly palates. Generally, the menu disappoints in relation to the extravagant cover image.”
“In Tastes and Traditions, I invite you to take a leap of the imagination in order to glance over the shoulders of diners at particular moments in history, to sit for a spell in their chairs and see the menu and its fare from the worldview of someone in that particular time and place.”
