it in a variety of empirical arenas (see Farberman 1975; Denzin 1977; Kleinman 1982; Levy 1982; Lynxwiler, Shover, and Clelland 1983; Hosticka 1979; Mesler 1989) and demonstrating how negotiation pervades a range of organizational and institutional environments. The negotiated order approach represents one of several theoretical apparatuses that attempts to link micro- and macroexplanations. It provides an understanding of how interaction emerges from structure and, in turn, how interaction becomes structured (Busch 1980, 1982): how the effects of interaction become patterned, creating social structure (see Fine 1991; Sewell 1992). Erving Goffman remarks:
All the world is not a stage—certainly the theater isn't entirely. (Whether you organize a theater or an aircraft factory, you need to find places for cars to park and coats to be checked, and these had better be real places, which, incidentally, had better carry real insurance against theft.) Presumably, a “definition of the situation” is almost always to be found, but those who are in the situation ordinarily do not create this definition, even though their society often can be said to do so; ordinarily, all they do is to assess correctly what the situation ought to be for them and then act accordingly. True, we personally negotiate aspects of all arrangements under which we live, but often once these are negotiated, we continue on mechanically as though the matter had always been settled.
(Goffman 1974, pp. 1-2)
As Goffman indicates, a consequential reality exists to which people pay heed, even when negotiating around the edges. People are able to define situations, but these definitions have consequences. For organizations, ecology, political economy, and authority hierarchy have this character. Micronegotiations that are so compelling to interactionists are organized by an obdurate, enveloping reality. To understand persons and their settings, we must oscillate between their “free” acts and the larger environments in which these actions occur. Anthony Giddens (1984, p. xxvi; see Collins 1981) notes: “The opposition between ‘micro' and ‘macro' is best reconceptualized as concerning how interaction in contexts of co-presence is structurally implicated in systems of broad time-space distanciation—in other words, how such systems span large sectors of time-space.” Several critical assumptions undergird the development of the negotiated order perspective. First, in this view all social order is negotiated order; that is, it is impossible to imagine organization without negotiation. All organizations are composed of actors, and even when we do not focus on their actions, they can subvert or support structural effects. Second, specific negotiations are contingent on the structure of the organization and the field in which the organization operates. Negotiations follow lines of power and communication, and are patterned and nonrandom. Third, negotiations have temporal limits and are renewed, revised, and reconstituted over time. The revisions may occur unpredictably, but the revisions themselves are often predictable post hoc if one examines changes in the organizational structure or ecology. Negotiations are historically contingent. Fourth, structural changes in the organization require a revision of the negotiated order. In other words, the structure of the organization and micropolitics of the negotiated order are closely and causally related (Herzfeld 1992). Strauss writes: “The negotiated order on any given day could be conceived of as the sum total of the organization's rules and policies, along with whatever agreements, understandings, pacts, contracts, and other working arrangements currently obtained. These include agreements at every level of organization, of every clique and coalition, and include covert as well as overt agreements” (1978, p. 2). Although this passage does not address the historical contingency of the negotiations, the ongoing and consequential character of these understandings is crucial. Strauss's later work (1991) on articulation and arcs of work attempts to bring temporality into the negotiation process.
Within a “negotiation framework,” two broad issues are crucial: (1) How organizational, economic, and environmental constraints affect choices and behaviors of workers in their daily routines—how “life worlds” are colored by constraints (Fine 1991). How structure affects culinary doings—the mundane experience of the occupation. (2) How all occupations involve a concern with “quality” production, and how these aesthetic standards are negotiated in practice. As I describe in chapter 6, all art is work, and all work is art. A delicate balance exists between action and constraint—what in other sociological venues is labeled the problem of agency and structure (e.g., Dawe 1978; Archer 1988; Fine 1992a). Before discussing each theme, I situate my analysis in the history of restaurants.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF RESTAURANTS AND CUISINE
If restaurants didn't exist, they'd have to be invented. Because a restaurant takes a basic drive, the simple act of eating, and transforms it into a civilized ritual—a ritual involving hospitality and imagination and satisfaction and graciousness and warmth.
—Joe Baum
Gastronomy has a distinguished pedigree, a history as lengthy as human political and economic history, but not always as well documented. Food has long been produced by “specialists” outside the family in “civilized society” (Mennell, Murcott, and Otterloo 1992).4 The ancient Greeks wrote of cookery as art (Bowden 1975, p. 2), and some suggest that the Chinese were concerned with “cuisine” at nearly the same period (Anderson and Anderson 1988; Chang 1977; Tiger 1985) and, according to others, subsequently started the first “serious” restaurants during the Tang dynasty (A.D. 618-907) (Ackerman 1990, p. 133). The great and gross banquets of the Roman Era and early Middle Ages are well known (Mennell 1985; Elias 1978; Wheaton 1983). By the Middle Ages cookbooks existed, street foods were sold to the public, and kings and nobles employed chefs to run their kitchens. Some medieval chefs such as Taillevent were famed throughout courtly society.5 If they were not as esteemed as artists, they were still ranked above craftsmen.
Cooking was not accorded equal status in all nations at all times (“Cook's Interview: Anne Willan” 1985, p. 19; “Cook's Interview: Richard Olney” 1986, p. 22); and France and China (and, according to some, Italy) are reputed to have established a “true” aesthetic, or court, cuisine. It has been a commonplace that English cookery and French cuisine differ substantially, much to the disadvantage of the former (e.g., Charpentier and Sparkes 1934, p. 131)—a difference that has existed for centuries (Mennell 1985, pp. 102-33)—although whether it is a function of national character, class structure, geographical organization of the nation-state, agricultural production, weather, or some other cause is a matter of contention. French cuisine has not always been considered the foremost in Europe, however. In the sixteenth century, Italian cuisine held that distinction. The change in national reputation is attributed to the 1533 marriage of Catherine de' Medici to Henry II of France. As queen, she brought with her some of the finest Italian cooks, and French cuisine was established by these new immigrants (Bowden 1975, p. 6).
Political movements and economic concerns contribute to culinary migration, just as they are associated with other migrations. An unanticipated consequence of the French Revolution was the emigration of some French court chefs to England (Bowden 1975, p. 8). A latent benefit of the end of the American war in Indochina was the influx of Vietnamese cooks to our shores, infusing urban restaurant scenes. Likewise, the new wave of immigration to American shores by Chinese nationals has produced a flowering of restaurants (Epstein 1993, p. 50). In fact, the American restaurant scene has benefited from waves of third world migration, bringing cuisines, cooks, and many minimumwage kitchen laborers. Migration moved west, as well as north and east: French tax rates, coupled with the growth of American culinary sophistication (and salaries for top chefs), have impelled French chefs to seek employment in American kitchens.
Court cuisine was well established by the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, but it was not until centuries later that the restaurant as modern, Western diners would recognize it appeared. Inns, teahouses and coffeehouses, caterers, cabarets, and taverns have long served food for a price (Brennan 1988), bringing dining into the public sphere, but it was not until 1765 that the first “restaurant” was established in Paris (Willan 1977, p. 85). With attention to the preparation and serving of meals, these restaurants were more specialized than
