Hospitality Today - An Introduction

In Hospitality Today : An Introduction

We have preserved our commitment to build a bridge from the industry to the internet blog. Hospitality Today deals with the real world of Hospitality. The purpose of the Blog, however: to improve readers/learners education and knowledge in Hospitality, and present and describe opportunity in Hospitality. These opportunity include education in a variety of travel & tourism businesses, including hotels, restaurants, private clubs, consulting firms, and cruise ships.

Hospitality is a service industry and the importance of service is emphasized in today's competitive marketplace, "Service Makes the Difference".

A CLOSER LOOK AT THE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY

Few people realize that there are at least three patrons saints for those engaged in providing hospitality to others. The first of these is Saint Julian the Hospitaller. while acknowledge that the may be mythical, he is listed in the Oxford Dictionary of Saints and ha seven English churches dedicated to him. In addition, he is depicted in stained glass windows in the cathedral of Charters and Rouen. He is the patron saint of innkeepers and travelers. His feast day, for those who wish to celebrate it, is January 29.

The legend goes that while Julian was away from home one day, a travelling couple knocked on the door of this house. His wife answered. She gave the tired travelers food and water and invited them to take a nap in her bed while she went to the market. While she was away, Julian (who was not yet a saint) came home to discover a man and woman asleep in his bedroom. Assuming it was his wife with another man, he killed them both on the spot. As the left the house he met his wife returning from the market. Because of this experience, he decided to spend the rest of his life being hospitable to stranger.

Although not as colorful, Saint Amand, a french monk who lived from 584 to 679, is recognized as the patron saint of innkeepers by the Roman Catholic Church, which holds his feast day on February 26. Saint Amand began his work in Bourges, France, where he was a missionary. His work took him throughout Europe and he founded several monasteries in Belgium. Amand's monasteries were highly regarded as places where weary travelers could find comfortable lodging and good food, and he was supposed to have been first-class manager.

The third Saint, Saint Notburga, has a church dedicated to her in her hometown of Eben/Maurach, Austria. The church literature describes her as a "farm girl who dedicated her life to the welfare of servants," and she is considered the patron saint of food servers.

HISTORY OF FOOD SERVICE

About the same time that hotels were gaining a strong foothold on both sides of Atlantic on the seventeenth century, reataurants were also achieving prominence, According to Food in History, professionally cooked food was not a new concept:

It had been known in Mesopotamia in the times of Nebuchadnezzar, and the population of the Near East still, in Medieval times, preffered not ot cook at home but to buy forcemeat balls, roast mutton, fish fritters, pancakes, and almond paste sweey from the market. It may, indeed, have been from the Arab world, by way of Spain, that the custom of buying ready made food was reintroduced into Europe.....

An interest in preparing delicious food on a large scale was stimulated in Europe by Louis XIV of France. He made dining a state occasion. The first restaurant, as distinct from an inn, tavern, or food specialty house, was opened by Boulanger in Paris in 1765. The first London restaurants (which served mainly French Food) were not established until about 1830. While he was ambassador to France,Thomas Jefferson learned to appreciate French food and wines and used them in White House functions when he became president. In 1832 America's first continental-style restaurant opened Delmonico's in New York City.