How did Los Angeles become the modern city the world watches? We know some of the answers all too well. Sunshine. Railroads. Hollywood. Freeways. But there’s another often overlooked but especially delicious and revealing factor: food. In its fourth book collaboration with the Los Angeles Public Library and the Library Foundation of Los Angeles, Angel City Press releases To Live and Dine in L.A.: Menus and the Making of the Modern City by Josh Kun. With more than 200 menus—some dating back to the nineteenth century— To Live and Dine in L.A. is a visual feast of a book.

In his detailed history, author Josh Kun riffs on what the food of a foodie city says about place and time. Kun shows how vintage menus teach us about more than just what’s tasty, and serve as guides to the politics, economics, and sociology of eating. For a broader take on the city’s food culture, Kun turns to L.A.’s most-beloved chefs and cultural observers: essays from Chef Roy Choi, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Jonathan Gold, museum curator Staci Steinberger and more shed light on a unique and vibrant culinary history.