Here’s Delmonico’s menu from February 26, 1900, in case anybody’s interested. It’s entirely in French, but I’ve copied it into Google Translate, and you can get the gist of things here.
The New York Public Library has just started posting scanned versions of their enormous collection of old menus, and they’re asking for volunteers to transcribe them. I’ve done a bunch - it’s interesting to see what was trendy back then, how much things cost, etc.
The menus from the last day of the RMS Titanic’s voyage are interesting: Untitled
One of my favorite books is H.L. Mencken Happy Days. He talked about growing up in Baltimore in the 1880s and 90s. He mentioned a lot of fruits and vegetables that were cheap in season and not available at all the rest of the year. It didn’t sound like store bought ice cream was that common either.
Being next to Chesapeake Bay, they were well supplied with crabs, oysters and clams. A poor man could go down an catch enough crabs to feed his family in short order. I don’t recall much mention of Lobsters. I don’t think they were popular back then.
His uncle Henry kept them well-supplied with duck in season.
It also seemed that a lot of adult males drank enough to be considered alcoholics by current standards.
I wonder how much Delmonicos cost. I know it was of the “if you have to ask you can’t afford it” but I’m curious what it was dollar wise.
Wow - that looks amazing. I can’t decide between the duck or the lamb.
The Big Oyster by Mark Kurlansky mentions Delmonicos a few times. Diamond Jim Brady would eat there and had a foolproof way to know when to end the meal. When he sat down, he made sure he was four inches from the table. When his stomach was tight against the edge of the table, he stopped eating.
The book also mentions that oysters could indeed be shipped long distances if packed properly. This is partly because when given a sharp tap on the shell, an oyster will go into “lock down” and clam up tight. This keeps a bit of fluid in there shell which sustains it. A frenchman once described oysters as the most polite creature in the world because they knew when to keep their mouth shut.
I recall an entry in Bob Hopes bio about staying safe with food at diners. There were only certain foods the actors would risk at diners. one of Hopes early vaudeville partner Lloyd Durbin died after eating a slice of cream pie. Either the diary or egg had given him food poisoning.
hm, since squab pops in at the next course I would focus on the lamb. Maybe the beef.
What place was it in Hello Dolly? I believe the whole dinner for 4 was $25.
Oysters were shipped huge distances by train in those days. They were packed in barrels with layers of ice, seaweed and cornmeal – the oysters survived on the cornmeal. East Coast oysters were in fact introduced to San Francisco Bay in the late 1800s. (Cite)
Ice machinery had been developed, but it was more widespread and cheaper to use ice that had been harvested from ponds in New England and kept in icehouses, insulated by sawdust. They were still doing this in many places into the 1920s. Hamilton, Mass., not that far from me, was one of the sources of ice.
I was once at a dinner party where the host and hostess hired a chef, spent about $1000 and recreated a dinner served in first class on board the Titanic.
About 10 or more courses and fantastic!
Did they drown the chefs in freezing water afterwards?
I think it’d be cool if some chef opened a period restaurant with the periods changing upon occasion. And extra great if they used actual menus: the ones from Titanic and Delmonico’s, a Gilded Age White House reception menu, Romanov night, etc…
Randomly interesting link about food over the centuries; it’s actually a link to many other links, so you can look through and go ‘Oooh, how DID mankind learn what foods were poisonous and which weren’t?’ or whatever: http://www.foodtimeline.org/food1.html
Or hey, what were Victorian kitchens like?
Thanks.
Even bearing in mind the difference between $1 then and now I’m still surprised by the prices. The most expensive entree is $2.50, at the outside around $50 now, and most items are half that. There are many restaurants all over the country with much more expensive entrees than $50.
I don’t even understand the question. I put an oyster in my mouth one time*, and since then I’ve not been able to endorse the notion that they are, in fact, food.
Pretty good at being pearl factories, though.
*not in the shell, in case you’re wondering.
Yeah, but most stuff there is a la carte, so to speak. You pay separately for your garnishes, your condiments, your vegetables; that 50 bucks is for your meat, and you might pay another 25 for your veggies.
Oysters Rockefeller is proof that God loves us.
Oysters were served by lots of street vendors in big East Coast cities before the Civil War. As common as hot dog stands now.
BMalion, that Titanic dinner sounds wonderful. I’m envious.