The reasons for eating dairy on Shavuot may be clouded in the mists of Sinai, but the custom is long-standing. New York’s famed dairy restaurants were another cultural fixture. Writer and cartoonist Ben Katchor has lovingly captured their history in a fascinating new book, “The Dairy Restaurant,” and will tell us all about them in this live-streamed author talk, followed by a Q&A.
In “The Dairy Restaurant,” Katchor retells the history of where we choose to eat—a history that starts with the first man who was allowed to enter a walled garden and encouraged by the garden’s owner to enjoy its fruits. He examines the biblical milk-and-meat taboo, the first vegetarian practices and the invention of the restaurant. Through text and drawings, Katchor illuminates the historical confluence of events and ideas that led to the development of a “milekhdike (dairy) personality” and the proliferation of dairy restaurants in America, and he recollects his own experiences in many of these iconic restaurants just before they disappeared.
Ben Katchor is the author of, among other “picture-story” books, “Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer,” “The Cardboard Valise” and “The Jew of New York.” He was the first cartoonist to receive a MacArthur Fellowship. He teaches at Parsons School of Design in New York City.
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