本文选自经济学人，和学长一起看餐厅的历史变迁。

学长建议

1. 在语境中学习表达用法；

2. 着重把握学长标注的内容；

3. 带着问题去阅读文章。

Reading Comprehension

1. What is the direct impact of the epidemic on people's dining patterns?

2. Why were the pubs at first more like takeaways?

3. Why is eating out seen as an indulgence today?

4. Why did the rich prefer to eat at home in the past?

5. What were the reasons for the accelerated growth of restaurants in the 20th century?

6. Why is eating out becoming more economically viable?

7. Why do the wealthiest people prefer to eat out today?

8. According to the article, what can restaurants do next?

AN ECONOMIC HISTORY OF RESTAURANTS

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And how the pandemic may change them

April 9th 2020 was the restaurant industry’s darkest day. The imposition of lockdowns to slow the spread of covid-19, combined with people voluntarily avoiding others, meant that on that Thursday bookings in America, Australia, Britain, Canada, Germany, Ireland and Mexico via OpenTable, a restaurant-reservation website, normally in their millions, fell to zero. Now, as economies unlock, many restaurants, even the fanciest, are facing labour shortages. Le Gavroche, one of London’s swankiest French offerings, has had to stop its lunch service and has lost its general manager.

2020年4月9日是餐饮业最黑暗的一天。实施封锁以减缓covid-19的传播，加上人们自愿避开他人，意味着在那个星期四，美国、澳大利亚、英国、加拿大、德国、爱尔兰和墨西哥通过餐厅预订网站OpenTable的预订量，通常是数以百万计的，下降到零。现在，随着经济的发展，许多餐厅，甚至是最豪华的餐厅，都面临着劳动力短缺的问题。伦敦最豪华的法国餐厅之一Le Gavroche不得不停止其午餐服务，并失去了总经理

Covid brought to a halt an astonishing expansion. In 2010-19 the number of licensed restaurants in Britain grew by 26%. Americans were, for the first time, spending more than half their total food budget on eating out. Well-paid folk from Hong Kong to Los Angeles were hAppily renting kitchenless apartments: why bother cooking when good food was so lavishly available beyond your front door?

Covid使其惊人的扩张停止了。在2010-19年，英国有执照的餐馆数量增长了26%。美国人首次将其总食品预算的一半以上用于外出就餐。从香港到洛杉矶的高薪人士都愉快地租下没有厨房的公寓：既然好的食物在你的前门外就能买到，为什么还要费心做饭？

Being deprived of restaurants has made people realise how much they value them. Eating out fulfils needs which seem fundamental to human nature. People need to date, to seal deals and to peer at their fellow humans. At a good restaurant you can travel without travelling, or simply feel coddled.

被剥夺了餐馆的权利使人们意识到他们是多么重视餐馆。外出就餐满足了似乎是人类本性的基本需求。人们需要约会，需要达成交易，需要跟随他们的同伴。在一家好的餐厅，你可以不用旅行而可以感觉到被呵护。

Yet restaurants in their current form are a few hundred years old at most. They do not satisfy some primeval urge, but rather those of particular sorts of societies. Economic and social forces, from political reform to urbanisation to changing labour markets, have created both the supply of and demand for restaurants. Their history also hints at what their future could look like in a post-pandemic world.

然而，目前形式的餐馆最多只有几百年的历史。它们并不满足于某种原始的冲动，而是满足于那些特殊类型的社会。经济和社会力量，从政治改革到城市化，再到不断变化的劳动力市场，都创造了对餐馆的供应和需求。它们的历史也暗示了它们在后大流行时代的未来会是什么样子。

People have long feasted outside the home. Archaeologists have counted 158 snack bars in Pompeii, a city destroyed by a volcano in 79ad—one for every 60-100 people, a higher ratio than many global cities today. Ready-cooked meat, game and fish were available for Londoners to eat from at least the 1170s. Samuel Cole, an early settler, opened what is considered to be the first American tavern in 1634, in Boston.

长期以来，人们一直在家庭之外大吃大喝。考古学家在庞贝（79年被火山摧毁的城市）统计出158家小吃店，每60-100人就有一家，这个比例比今天许多全球城市都要高。至少从1170年代开始，伦敦人就可以吃到现成的肉类、野味和鱼类。早期定居者塞缪尔-科尔于1634年在波士顿开设了被认为是美国第一家酒馆的餐厅。

These were more like takeaways, though, or stands where food might be thrown in with a drink, than restaurants. The table , which Appeared in France around Cole’s time, most closely resembled a modern restaurant. Clients sat at a single table and ate what they were given (trends now making a comeback). Many of these proto-restaurants resembled community kitchens, or quasi-charities, which existed for the benefit of locals. Strangers were not always welcome.

不过，这些酒馆更像是外卖店，或者在饮料中加入食物的摊位，而不是餐馆。在科尔时代左右出现在法国的 "餐桌"与现代餐厅最为相似。客户坐在一张桌子上，吃他们所得到的东西（现在的趋势正在卷土重来）。这些原生餐厅中有许多类似于社区厨房，或准慈善机构，为当地人的利益而存在。陌生人并不总是受欢迎。

Nor were they destinations predominantly for the well-heeled. Before the use of coal became widespread in England in the 17th century, preparing food at home involved spending a lot on wood or peat. Professional kitchens, by contrast, benefited from economies of scale in energy consumption and so could provide meals at a lower cost than people could themselves. Today dining out is seen as an indulgence, but it was the cheapest way to eat for most of human history.

它们也不是主要为富人服务的地方。在17世纪煤炭在英国广泛使用之前，在家里准备食物需要花费大量的木材或泥炭。相比之下，专业厨房从能源消耗的规模经济中受益，因此能够以比人们自己更低的成本提供膳食。今天，外出就餐被视为一种放纵，但在人类历史的大部分时间里，这是最便宜的饮食方式。

It was, thus, a low-status activity. Cicero and Horace reckoned that a visitor to a bar might as well have visited a brothel. According to “Piers Plowman”, a late-14th-century poem, cooks would “poison the people privily and oft”. Some rich types rented private dining rooms; Samuel Pepys, a 17th-century diarist, enjoyed eating “in the French style” (that is, with communal dishes) at one in London. But most wealthy people preferred to eat at home, enjoying the luxury of having staff to cook and clean up.

因此，它是一种低地位的活动。西塞罗和贺拉斯认为，去酒吧的人还不如去妓院。根据14世纪末的诗歌 "Piers Plowman"，厨师们会 "私下里经常毒害人们"。一些富人租用私人餐厅；17世纪的日记作者塞缪尔-佩皮斯（Samuel Pepys）在伦敦的一个餐厅享受 "法国式 "的饮食（即使用公共菜肴）。但大多数富人喜欢在家里吃饭，享受有工作人员做饭和打扫卫生的奢侈。

Over time, however, the notion that a respectable person might eat a meal in public gradually took hold. Wilton’s, a fish restaurant in London, got going in 1742. Dublin’s oldest, established in 1775, traded under the name of the “Three Blackbirds” and was “noted for a good bottle of Madeira, as well as for a Chop from the Charcoal Grill”. Fraunces Tavern, New York City’s oldest restaurant, probably opened in 1762 (it is still open today and serves determinedly American fare from clam chowder to New York prime strip steaks).

然而，随着时间的推移，一个受人尊敬的人可以在公共场合进餐的观念逐渐深入人心。伦敦的威尔顿鱼馆于1742年开始营业。都柏林最古老的餐厅成立于1775年，以 "三只黑鸟 "的名义进行交易，"以一瓶上好的马德拉酒和炭火烤肉而闻名"。Fraunces Tavern，纽约市最古老的餐厅，可能于1762年开业（至今仍在营业，提供从蛤蜊汤到纽约顶级牛排的坚定的美国菜）。

Some historians look to the supply side to explain this shift, arguing that the restaurant emerged as a result of improvements in competition policy. Powerful guilds often made it hard for a business to sell two different products simultaneously. Butchers monopolised the sale of meat; vintners that of wine. The growth of the restaurant, which serves many different things, required breaking down these barriers to trade.

一些历史学家从供给方面来解释这一转变，认为餐厅的出现是竞争政策改善的结果。强大的行会往往使一个企业很难同时销售两种不同的产品。屠夫垄断了肉类的销售；酒商垄断了葡萄酒的销售。提供多种不同服务的餐厅的发展需要打破这些贸易壁垒。

A Monsieur Boulanger, a soup-maker in Paris, may have been the first to do so. He dared sell a dish of “sheep’s feet in white-wine sauce”. The city’s traiteurs (caterers) claimed the dish contained a ragout, a meat dish only they were allowed to prepare, and was therefore illegal. They took their case to court, but Boulanger triumphed. The tale, supposedly marking the beginning of a movement in mid-18th-century France towards more open markets, is probably apocryphal. But other regulatory changes did help. In Britain reformers worried about public drunkenness passed a law in 1860 allowing places serving food to serve wine as well (thus encouraging people to eat something to sop up the booze). Around the same time American states started passing food-safety laws, giving customers more confidence in the quality of the food.

巴黎的一位制汤师Monsieur Boulanger可能是第一个这样做的人。他敢于出售一道 "白葡萄酒酱汁羊蹄 "的菜肴。该市的餐饮业者声称，这道菜含有_ragout_，一种只有他们才被允许准备的肉类菜肴，因此是非法的。他们向法院提起诉讼，但布兰格取得了胜利。这个故事据说标志着18世纪中期法国走向更开放的市场的开始，但这可能是个虚构的故事。但其他的监管变化确实有帮助。在英国，担心公众醉酒的改革者在1860年通过了一项法律，允许提供食物的地方也提供葡萄酒（从而鼓励人们吃点东西来喝掉酒）。大约在同一时间，美国各州开始通过食品安全法，使顾客对食品的质量更有信心。

Yet for restaurants to flourish, richer people had to demand what Pepys did not: eating in full view of others. Until the 18th century elites largely viewed public spaces as dirty and dangerous, or as an arena of spectacle. But as capitalism took off, public spaces became sites of rational dialogue which were (putatively) open to all. And, as Charles Baudelaire, a French poet, observed, 19th-century cities also became places where people indulged in conspicuous consumption.

然而，为了使餐馆蓬勃发展，更富有的人不得不要求佩皮斯所没有的东西：在别人的注视下吃饭。在18世纪之前，精英们大多将公共场所视为肮脏和危险的地方，或视为观赏性的舞台。但随着资本主义的发展，公共空间成为理性对话的场所，（据说）向所有人开放。而且，正如法国诗人查尔斯-波德莱尔（Charles Baudelaire）所观察到的，19世纪的城市也成为了人们沉溺于炫耀性消费的地方。

The restaurant was the natural habitat of the flâneur, Baudelaire’s wandering observer of city life. Where better than a restaurant to see and be seen? Out went the set menu of the table d'hôte; in came the à la carte kind. Shared tables gave way to private ones. Eating out became less of a communal activity focused on calorie intake and more of a cultural experience—and a place, as Baudelaire wrote, where people could show off their wealth by ordering more food than they could eat and drinking more than they needed.

餐馆是 "旅行者 "的自然栖息地，波德莱尔是城市生活的漫游者。有什么地方比餐厅更适合看和被看呢？饭店的固定菜单被淘汰了，进来的是 "点菜 "的形式。共用餐桌让位于私人餐桌。外出就餐不再是一种关注卡路里摄入量的公共活动，而是一种文化体验——正如波德莱尔所写的那样，人们可以通过点更多的食物和喝更多的酒来炫耀他们的财富。

Restaurants’ growth accelerated in the 20th century. American employment in food service quadrupled as a share of the workforce over this period. The Michelin Guide was first published in 1900; the stars came 26 years later. And yet the continued rise of the restaurant up until the pandemic nonetheless presents an economic puzzle. Cooking at home was becoming ever easier. Average house sizes grew. Appliances such as the food processor and the dishwasher reduced preparation and clean-up times. Dining out became relatively more expensive: in America in 1930 a restaurant meal was 25% costlier than an equivalent meal at home, but by 2014 the gap had risen to 280%. From 2007-20 “French Laundry inflation”, describing the cost of a meal at a three-Michelin-star restaurant in California, was twice the core inflation rate.

餐馆的发展在20世纪加速了。在此期间，美国餐饮业的就业人数在劳动力中的比例翻了两番。米其林指南》于1900年首次出版；26年后才有了星级标准。然而，直到大流行病发生之前，餐馆的持续兴起还是带来了一个经济难题。在家做饭正变得越来越容易。平均住房面积增加。食品加工机和洗碗机等电器缩短了准备和清理时间。外出就餐变得相对更昂贵：1930年在美国，在餐馆就餐比在家里就餐要贵25%，但到2014年，这一差距已经上升到280%。从2007年到20年，"法国洗衣店通货膨胀"，描述的是在加州一家米其林三星餐厅吃饭的成本，是核心通货膨胀率的两倍。

And yet three economic changes ensured that demand for restaurants grew despite rising prices. The first is immigration. In the 50 years after the second world war the net flow of migrants into rich countries, relative to population, more than quadrupled. Starting a restaurant is a good career move for new arrivals; it neither requires formal qualifications nor, at least for chefs, fluency in the local language. Migrants tend to improve the quality of an area’s restaurants. London’s became far better in the era of free movement with the European Union. The melting pot that is Singapore has some of the best food in the world. Restaurants became more tempting, even as prices went up.

然而，有三个经济变化确保了对餐馆的需求在价格上涨的情况下仍能增长。首先是移民。在第二次世界大战后的50年里，相对于人口而言，进入富裕国家的移民净流量增加了四倍多。对于新移民来说，开餐馆是一个很好的职业发展，它既不需要正式的资格证书，至少对于厨师来说，也不需要流利的当地语言。移民往往能提高一个地区的餐馆质量。在与欧盟自由流动的时代，伦敦的餐厅变得更好。新加坡这个大熔炉有一些世界上最好的食物。餐馆变得更加诱人，即使价格上涨也是如此。

The second factor was the changing microeconomics of the family. As a new paper by Rachel Griffith of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a think-tank, and colleagues, shows, households’ choices about whether to make their own food or to buy it premade are shaped not only by the upfront cost of those things. They also depend on what economists call “shadow costs”.

第二个因素是家庭微观经济的变化。正如智囊团财政研究所（Institute for Fiscal Studies）的瑞秋-格里菲斯（Rachel Griffith）及其同事的一篇新论文所显示的那样，家庭对自己制作食物还是购买预制食品的选择，不仅受到这些东西的前期成本的影响。他们还取决于经济学家所说的 "影子成本"。

The true cost of an at-home meal involves not just the outlay for the ingredients, but the time spent on shopping and preparation. In an era of low female labour-force participation, shadow costs were low. A stay-at-home mother who cooked instead of eating out would have less leisure time. But as more women entered the workforce during the 20th century this equation changed, raising the shadow cost of cooking. Now a working woman who cooked dinner would be sacrificing time which might otherwise be used to earn money. And so eating out made increasing economic sense, even as it became more expensive.

在家吃饭的真正成本不仅包括食材的支出，还包括购物和准备的时间。在一个女性劳动力参与度低的时代，影子成本很低。一个在家做饭而不是在外面吃饭的母亲，会有更少的休闲时间。但在20世纪，随着越来越多的女性进入劳动力市场，这个等式发生了变化，提高了烹饪的影子成本。现在，一个工作的妇女如果做饭，就会牺牲掉原本可以用来挣钱的时间。因此，外出就餐变得越来越有经济意义，即使它变得更加昂贵。

The third factor was changing working patterns. Historically poor people have tended to work longer hours than rich ones. But in the latter half of the 20th century the opposite became true. The rise of knowledge-intensive jobs, and globalisation, made rich people’s work more financially rewarding—and enjoyable. Toiling into the night became a sign of status. The upshot was that the people with the most money to spend on dining out increasingly needed it most, since they had the least free time. In Britain the richest tenth of households devote a much bigger chunk of their overall spending to dining and drinking out than the poorest tenth, and the gap has grown in recent years.

第三个因素是工作模式的变化。历史上，穷人的工作时间往往比富人长。但在20世纪后半叶，情况变得相反。知识密集型工作的兴起，以及全球化，使富人的工作更有经济回报，也更有乐趣。熬夜工作成为地位的象征。结果是，拥有更多资金用于外出就餐的人越来越需要它，因为他们的空闲时间最少。在英国，最富有的十分之一的家庭用于外出就餐和饮酒的开支比最贫穷的十分之一的家庭大得多，而且近年来这种差距还在扩大。

What does the history of the restaurant say about its future? People have relished their reopening. In recent weeks global restaurant reservations have been near their pre-pandemic levels. The best ones are booked up for months: Silicon Valley nerds have created automated bots which instantly reserve tables.

该餐厅的历史对其未来有何启示？人们对其重新开业感到高兴。最近几周，全球餐厅的预订量已接近大流行前的水平。最好的餐厅已经被预订了几个月。硅谷的书呆子们已经创造了自动机器人，可以立即预订餐桌。

The long-term future of the restaurant is less clear. The pandemic has led to many people buying more takeout than before (Uber’s revenue from delivery now exceeds what it earns from helping people get around), while others have a newfound love of cooking. Restaurants have little choice but to continue to adapt. That means moving still further from the utilitarian model of the 18th century and before, and instead doubling down on what they do best: offering those who need to eat a taste of romance, glamour and love.

餐馆的长期前景不太明朗。这场大流行导致许多人比以前更多地购买外卖（Uber的外卖收入现在超过了它帮助人们出行的收入），而其他人则对烹饪有了新的喜爱。餐馆没有什么选择，只能继续适应。这意味着要进一步远离18世纪及以前的功利主义模式，而要加倍努力做他们最擅长的事情：为那些需要吃饭的人提供浪漫、魅力和爱情的味道。