Reforming Restaurants
Moving beyond experimental home cooking and communal kitchens, alternative groups turned to restaurants as a means of recruiting and converting people to the experience of eating differently. Prime among these were places with vegetarian cuisine, from the country collective Moosewood in Ithaca, New York, to the urban, Zen Buddhist haute including Greens restaurant and Tassajara Bakery in California. Across the country, every college town’s “health food” eatery was also part of this trend.
The Tassajara Bread Book, 1970
The Zen Center of San Francisco recruited Edward Espe Brown, a Buddhist monk, to open the Tassajara Bakery. It made artisanal, whole-grain breads and supplied alternative restaurants and customers newly interested in food good for their physical and spiritual health. Brown’s book inspired many people to bake bread at home.
Gift of Rayna Green
