It was an idea so simple, it was brilliant.

“It was Easter Sunday, 2011,” Lori J. Durante said. “I was at Easter services, thinking about the historic bus tours of Delray Beach.” Durante, who founded the Museum of Lifestyle and Fashion History in 2003, had been conducting bus tours focusing on historic neighborhoods since 2004, and she knew a lot about local history.

“I’d heard about food tours before, and I knew it was a perfect fit.”

Durante’s Taste History Culinary Tours of Historic Palm Beach County are the first food tour of its kind in Palm Beach County. These aren’t pub crawls or progressive dinners. These are history tours that use food as a jumping-off place. Durante says she had to study up on food history.

The tours sold out for the first seven months, and private tours became really popular. “There’s a renewed hunger for the museum,” Durante laughs.

Here are five reasons to tour:

1. Taste History is a four-hour, food-centric, narrated excursion. Much is by bus, but there is walking involved, usually about four to six blocks. Tours are small, limited to 25 people. Durante does the narration with no script, so no two tours are the same.

2. At least three to four eateries are visited per tour, along with visits to historic buildings and art galleries. More than 30 restaurants are featured on a rotating schedule. You’ll meet the chefs at the restaurants for the food tastings and interact with the local artists at the art galleries.

3. Food history is fascinating. Pioneers brought their own food history and it blended with the diet of the local Native Americans who ate from nature. Europeans brought their own food items. Cultures represented include African American, Southern American, Caribbean, Greco-Roman, Italian, English, French, Irish, Australian, New Zealand, Ancient Mexican and Hungarian.

4. It supports the non-profit Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History, which opened its doors in October 2003.

5. Taste History features tours of Delray Beach and Boynton Beach on the third and fourth Saturdays; and Lake Worth and Lantana tours are on the second Saturdays.