When's the last time you ordered turtle when you went out to eat? Most of us would probably turn it down in an instant if we saw it on a menu. But terrapin was a completely normal entree for diners at the finest restaurants of a century ago. America's changing tastes — and what they have to say about our culture — are explored in a new nonfiction book, Ten Restaurants That Changed America . It begins with Delmonico's, a grand Gotham destination since 1837, with clubby red leather chairs, black and white tile floors and mahogany panels. "You can't have the modern American restaurant without Delmonico's," explains author Paul Freedman. A professor of medieval history at Yale University, Freedman studied the spice trade before training his scholarly sights on the social history of the U.S., as told through eating out. Delmonico's was not the first restaurant in America, but it raised the bar, Freedman says, for all the hash houses, oyster cellars and taverns that were then the only places
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