HEY, WAITRESS!

From the author of Frauen (1993), another oral history of female experience, this one depicting food servers in American restaurants, ranging from upscale to fast food.

Feeling that the nation’s 1.5-million waitresses are underappreciated and under-studied, Owings traveled across the country collecting insights about this much-maligned occupation. Beginning with a bit of historical background, she profiles the first US waitresses: northern, urban women serving spirits in taverns. (Country establishments relied on family members; southern taverns used male slaves.) The proximity to alcohol and men gave rise to an occupational stigma that remains today. The author showcases a nice diversity of voices. Cathryn Smith, the first woman ever to work at New York’s La Côte Basque, took French lessons, went to France on extended leave to learn about wines, and went into the restaurant on her only day off each week to learn about carving and sauces. At the other end of the spectrum is Lorraine Talcove, a 73-year-old dishwasher at a Pizza Hut on Staten Island. Not surprisingly, the women who get paid a decent wage (at Berkeley’s Chez Panisse, $15 an hour plus tips) are more content than the majority who make $2 an hour plus tips. Owings seems somewhat naïve: she is shocked that the work is dangerous, that the women are sexually harassed, that many customers are insulting. She also brings cultural biases to the project. When interviewing a Native American at a small café an hour outside Tucson, the author patronizingly refers to the woman’s use of “archaic words like ‘naughty’. . . that may be a legacy of missionaries.” And she has an annoying habit of including unnecessary quotation marks within her sentences: “The table fit a stereotype that the staff had spotted ‘a mile away’ and that had been confirmed by orders of iced tea.”

Best when Owings steps back and lets the women speak for themselves.