SoylentNews

Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

The last time you went to a restaurant, what did you order [washingtonpost.com]? A plate of celery and radishes to start, perhaps? How about a pack of cigarettes or an alligator pear salad?

These things rarely make an appearance on restaurant tables today, but not so long ago, they were all common on American menus, as a massive collection of historical menus at the New York Public Library shows. After more than a century of collecting, the library has amassed more than 40,000 restaurant menus. About 18,000 of those menus, dating from 1851 to 2008, have been digitized and are available on the library's website [nypl.org].
...
Others offer a snapshot of history. In addition to the menu above, from the Pan-American exhibition where President McKinley was assassinated, the collection includes the menu from McKinley's inauguration. It also includes the menu for a meal McKinley ate in 1899 while riding the Pennsylvania Railroad, a defunct railroad that most people will know from the game Monopoly. That menu includes interesting dishes like green turtle, broiled oysters on toast, and, of course, celery.

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