A Century of Restaurants: Stories and Recipes from 100 of America’s Most Historic and Successful Restaurants‏

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New restaurants are a dime a dozen, but sprinkled throughout the United States are remarkable restaurants filled with rich American history and delicious dishes that have kept people coming back for decades. Author Rick Browne shares this amazing history and some of the country’s most coveted recipes in his new cookbook, A Century of Restaurants: Stories and Recipes from 100 of America’s Most Historic and Successful Restaurants (Andrews McMeel Publishing, October 2013, $40).

In A Century of Restaurants, Browne profiles 100 restaurants, at least a century old—and in some cases, 200 and even 300-years-old.

From the oldest restaurant in the US (White Horse Tavern in Newport, Rhode Island, which began serving hungry folks “Stewed Pompion” and “Roast Beef-Stake” in 1673) to the youngest centenarian (the Pleasant Point Inn, a famed resort in Lovell, Maine, which began its long run in 1911), each restaurant played a major part in shaping US culinary culture. They represent the best of family traditions, have provided jobs for millions of people, entertained and fed millions more, and in many ways define what we call American hospitality.

Throughout his 46,066-mile journey into America’s oldest restaurants, Browne talked to the owners, the chefs and cooks, the waiters and busboys, the old customers who return year after year, and the folks who have just walked in the door for the first time, all the while looking for the secrets to their longevity, the magic that has kept people coming into their dining rooms for ten decades or more.

Readers can literally take a step back in time as they immerse themselves in the food history that shaped our country, prepare the recipes that sustained the restaurants throughout the years, and reminisce of years gone by with the unique photography.

Rick Browne is a TV cooking show host, photojournalist, cookbook author, newspaper restaurant critic and food writer who has traveled the world on assignment for consumer travel and airline magazines, as well as food publications, newspapers and internet websites, as host of two cooking shows on television, and for the 15 cookbooks he has authored. He is the creator, host, and executive producer of public television’s popular Barbecue America TV series (described as a cooking and travelogue series highlighting America’s and the world’s outdoor culinary landscape), which, in its seventh season, was aired on more than 230 public TV stations nationwide. He was also the host of the Outdoor Channel cooking and travel show: Ready, Aim…Grill. In 2012 he was one of 16 grilling experts nationwide invited by the Food Network to compete on the Chopped Grill Masters series. For more info, visit: http://wwprods.squarespace.com/

My Review-

The recipes in this book were amazing but what I really loved was the history behind the restaurants. You were totally immersed and the pictures were completely amazing! I added quite a few to my bucket list and I will not lie, I was completely jealous of Mr. Browne’s travels. All of the sights and smells he encountered are ones you can only imagine! I would definitely recommend this book for ANY foodie in your life. Not only will they enjoy the recipes but they will also enjoy the history.

Here are just a few fun facts to whet your appetite:

Here are just a few fun facts to whet your appetite:

1. The bar in Sydney, Nebraska where Ernest Hemingway edited A Farewell to Arms while sitting on a stool sipping martinis.
2. “Black Sam,” the native-born Jamaican who operated Gen. Washington’s favorite New York City restaurant, and was then tabbed the first White House Chef.
3. The New Jersey inn that inspired a Rogers & Hart song covered by Frank Sinatra, Jo Stafford, Ella Fitzgerald and many other singers in the mid-1950’s.
4. The feisty Pennsylvania innkeeper who told Gen. Washington, at the time the Commander-In-Chief of the Continental Army, “You can’t sleep here.”
5. A rustic tavern in Arkansas where a local blacksmith created an unusual knife and presented it to a pioneer who was passing through. Later the knife became as famous as the man who received it.
6. The restaurant in Denver visited by a tribal war party of 30 Blackfeet Indians in 1938 in full war paint and battle dress, who rode up on horseback and with great ceremony delivered a historic gift to the owner.
7. Restaurants where Billy the Kid washed dishes, Ho Chi Minh baked bread and cakes, the King of France taught ballroom dancing, Japan’s 66th Prime Minister worked while attending college, a tavern where a traitor was hanged on a hill right behind the place, and the tavern where Ben Franklin slept under 100 hams.
8. The rural public house where all the books in the library have been cut in half.
9. The tavern where Buffalo Bill paid for drinks and grub with a $1,000 dollar bill- shocking the owner and the whole town.
10. The hotel bar where Teddy Roosevelt recruited and signed up many of his Rough Riders

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