If H. G. Wells had decided to send his Time Traveler to report on the early restaurants of New York, I doubt he could have provided us a much better description of the city’s rich culinary history than the one William Grimes has just written. Grimes, a longtime food writer for the New York Times — perhaps the most prominent journalistic organ when it comes to food, a maker and breaker of chefs and restaurateurs — has specialized in observing New York’s contemporary food scene. Now he looks back, tracing its bewildering maze of food cultures and traditions, from its …