The Surprisingly Salacious History of the Modern Restaurant

If you were to head to Paris in the mid-eighteenth Century and ask for a restaurant, you might be handed a bowl of meat bouillon, prepared in such a way as to improve vigor and perhaps even sperm production. Restaurant referred first to the broth itself and then to the eateries in which men, and less frequently women, could eat said broth. As restaurant came to mean the luxurious establishment at one which could eat an elaborate menu of delicate food items prepared by talented chefs, sex stayed the menu, and restaurants and the city’s sex workers formed a mutually beneficial relationship to serve diners’ appetites. Even as restaurants jumped across the pond to the US, the correlation remained. As a word of warning, this episode may not be appropriate for younger ears. Joining this episode is Dr. Rachel Hope Cleves, Professor of History at the University of Victoria and author of Lustful Appetites: An Intimate History of Good Food and Wicked Sex.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Sugar Blues,” composed by Clarence Williams with lyrics by Lucy Fletcher; this performance is by Leonare Williams and her Dixie Band, recorded on August 10, 1922, in New York City; the audio is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress. National Jukebox. The episode image is a digitized image from "Tableaux de Paris ... Paris qui consomme. Dessins de P. Vidal," published in Paris in 1893.; the digital version is available via the British Library and is in the public domain.

Additional Sources:

• “When Did People Start Eating in Restaurants?” by Dave Roos, History.com, Originally published May 18, 2020, and updated August 20, 2023.
• “Revolutionary broth: the birth of the restaurant and the invention of French gastronomy,” by Joel Abrams, The Conversation, August 25, 2021.
• “Are Oysters an Aphrodisiac?” by Alicia Ault, Smithsonian Magazine, February 13, 2017.
• “Looking to Quell Sexual Urges? Consider the Graham Cracker,” by Adee Braun, The Atlantic, January 15, 2014.
• “Segregating Restaurants,” by Kimberly Wilmot Voss, PhD, NY Food Story.
• “The Ornate Ice Cream Saloons That Served Unchaperoned Women,” by Jessica Gingrich, Atlas Obscura, June 22, 2018
• “History,” The Berghoff.
• “8 Restaurants And Bars Where U.S. History Was Made,” by Mercedes Kane, The Takeout, June 22, 2022.
• “National Statistics,” National Restaurant Association.
• “A restaurant wanting a ‘grown and sexy’ vibe bans diners under 30,” by Emily Heil, The Washington Post, June 10, 2024.

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