Tastes and Traditions: A Journey Through Menu History

Biographical Note:
Nathalie Cooke is professor of English at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Her books include Canadian Literary Fare, winner of the 2024 Gabrielle Roy Prize, and What's to Eat? Entrées in Canadian Food History.

Review Quotes:
"Every page in this book is a work of art, stimulating the imagination as well as the appetite."--Jeffrey M. Pilcher, University of Toronto

Review Quotes:
"This is a book for all of us who've been tempted to swipe a memorable menu. Brilliantly illustrated and argued, this is a tantalizing history of the restaurant menu as a cultural artifact. From the 'menu French' of fine dining restaurants to the racist imagery of notable American chains, Tastes and Traditions explains how menus give meaning to our meals."--Daniel E. Bender, Canada Research Chair in Food and Culture, University of Toronto, and author of "The Food Adventurers: How Around-the-World Travel Changed the Way We Eat"

Review Quotes:
"This dazzling volume guides us through several centuries of menus that reflect changing tastes and societal norms. Cooke's incisive text and visual juxtapositions illuminate the evolution of menus over time. From luxury trains to refugee ships, from high-end restaurants to prison bills of fare, the menus in Tastes and Traditions go far beyond gastronomy to explore important issues of aesthetics, social history, marketing and desire."--Darra Goldstein, founding editor of Gastronomica and editor in chief of the "Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Food Studies"

Review Quotes:
"This illustrated history of the menu explores how they shed light on culinary trends and reflect evolving notions of what's healthy."-- "Publishers Weekly (Spring 2025 Fiction & Nonfiction Preview: Cooking & Food)"

Review Quotes:
"Cooke considers aesthetic, textural, and culinary elements of menus to make a compelling case for their importance not only as a record of cuisine but as a cultural artifact and communication tool. . . . This book will appeal broadly to nonfiction readers who are interested in culinary and cultural history as well as design. An entertaining and beautiful look at the history and significance of menus."-- "Library Journal"

Review Quotes:
" Tastes and Traditions explores menus as strategic documents--much more than simple bills of fare. Menus, it says, do not always present their wares in a straightforward way; some go off the beaten path, becoming almost as important as the food itself. . . . All are a delight to read through. . . . Menus from across history are shared as an opportunity to 'to take a leap of imagination, ' vicariously peering over the shoulders of the guests who read them and experienced the inventive meals they represent."-- "Foreword Reviews"

Review Quotes:
"Cooke elucidates the value of the traditional restaurant menu. More than a list of dishes, it is a medium that can amuse, flatter, educate and tantalize diners, elevating the restaurant experience. Cooke's copiously illustrated book is filled with color images of menus both ancient and modern, including a bill of fare made up solely of emojis (from a boundary-pushing 'immersive dining' restaurant in Bangkok). . . . Tastes and Traditions shows us how menus, unlike the transitory attractions of the QR code, became imbued with human meaning."--Andrew Coe "The Wall Street Journal"

Review Quotes:
"Food for thought. What are menus? What do they contain? And, ultimately, why do they matter? . . . A handsomely illustrated and diverting celebration of a rich if overlooked genre."-- "Kirkus Reviews"

Review Quotes:
"However hygienic and handy QR codes may be, th ey will never inspire a book as thoughtful and rich as Tastes and Traditions, an investigation of the aesthetic and cultural semiotics of the printed menu. . . . Readers may find themselves more inclined to cherish the bill of fare next time they eat out--or at least to give it more than a cursory glance."-- "Literary Review of Canada"

Review Quotes:
"Menus are so much more than a tool to order food, Montreal author Cooke posits in her engaging and informative new book on the history of menus: Among other things, they can be a window into the history, cultural identity and economics of the time in which they were written and designed, she tells us. . . . It's an extensively--and beautifully--illustrated book that explores how menus entertain, reflect changing notions of health 'and highlight the enduring human need to make meals meaningful, ' as she observes."--Susan Schwartz "The Montreal Gazette"

Review Quotes:
"Whether printed out, scrawled on a chalkboard or scanned via QR code, menus are more than just a tool to order food, Cooke argues; they can in fact be a window into the history, economics and even cultural identity of the time in which they were made. . . . Whether it's as nebulous as Canada's national identity, or relatively simple as a bar's personal branding, menus are an integral part of people's stories, as much as the food they describe. As Cooke writes in Tastes and Traditions, 'Menus offer us concrete traces, testimony of the stories we told--through our food choices--about who we were and who we aspired to be.'"-- "CBC's Sunday Magazine"

Review Quotes:
"A beautifully produced and intellectually rigorous work, Cooke's Tastes and Traditions proves that menus are not just ephemera. Rather, they are narratives of taste, time, and transformation."-- "McGill News Alumni Magazine"

Review Quotes:
"Cooke's illuminating book reveals . . . our relationship with menus via their whimsical, sophisticated, and sometimes downright disturbing designs. . . . With a cover featuring a Henri Gervex Parisian Belle Époque café scene, Cooke's book may seem imposing. But who hasn't experienced that moment when thumbing through a menu, whether at a comfort food diner or fine dining establishment, of anticipation building with each tempting dish? (Though this simple pleasure might vanish faster than yesterday's special--thanks, QR codes.) This universal experience gives Cooke's book broad appeal."--Sher Hackwell "Culinary Historians of Canada's Digestible Bits and Bites"

Review Quotes:

"The traditional restaurant menu, as we learn in this McGill professor's new book, can be a medium for expression, an artifact of life and trace moments in social change. Illustrated with examples, she covers three centuries of the evolution of dining à la carte."

"Tastes and Traditions will change your mind about the importance of menus. . . . [Cooke] looks at menus back several hundred years, the traditions, the social norms. It's amazing what you can find."

"Cooke explores how cartes, beyond affording a collective 'glimpse behind the proverbial green baize door', can memorialise historic events, supply cultural encounters (of a generally bastardised kind), promote health, bewitch the young and, generally, dish up feasts for the eyes. Ranging from scrolled banquets served to Louis XV to an emoji-filled offering in Bangkok, these introduce us to Coca-Cola as a cure-all and free cigars dangled as bait, as well as fine artists such as Toulouse-Lautrec dipping their brushes into bills of fare. Nor let us ignore the cartoonish stereotypes, from African Americans setting about watermelons (a rib shack) to a geisha fluttering her eyelashes behind a fan (sushi). Truly, a bellyful of cultural history."

Review Citations:

• Library Journal 03/01/2025 pg. 111 (EAN 9781836390671, Hardcover)
• Foreword 02/17/2025 (EAN 9781836390671, Hardcover)
• Kirkus Reviews 03/15/2025 (EAN 9781836390671, Hardcover)

Contributor Bio:Cooke, Nathalie
Nathalie Cooke is professor of English at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Her books include Canadian Literary Fare, winner of the 2024 Gabrielle Roy Prize, and What's to Eat? Entrées in Canadian Food History.