Comments on: On tonight's menu: mermaid riding a lobster

On tonight's menu: mermaid riding a lobster

donajo — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 16:52:55 -0800

10 Vintage Menus That Are a Feast for the Eyes, If Not the Stomach

By: dunkadunc

dunkadunc — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 17:02:11 -0800

The restaurants in my area can't be arsed to do better than Comic Sans or Papyrus. How much we have lost.

By: jonmc

jonmc — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 17:06:46 -0800

This would be a lot cooler if we could actually see what was on the menus. Just saying.

By: The Card Cheat

The Card Cheat — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 17:18:56 -0800

Port Huron, Michigan's (awesome) Chicken In The Rough still has this drawing of a smoking chicken breaking a golf club on the menu.

By: The Whelk

The Whelk — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 17:33:41 -0800

If I don't use " Curlz" how are people supposed to know how fun and casual my southwestern omelette platter is hmmm?

By: librarylis

librarylis — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 17:45:11 -0800

This would be a lot cooler if we could actually see what was on the menus. Just saying. I sort of skimmed the blog post, but I understand that some of these photos were coming from library collections. So I googled around a bit and found a few (I love historical menus, so this was no hardship). You can see what's on the menus at restaurants from coast to coast, from the first part of the century to more modern eras: -The justifiably famous NYPL collection. -The collection at University of Washington. -UNLV's collection. -LAPL's collection.

By: benito.strauss

benito.strauss — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 18:03:40 -0800

Those were great. Ballsy move putting a cockroach on the last one.

By: Pre-Taped Call In Show

Pre-Taped Call In Show — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 18:08:49 -0800

You can read the menus, click on the name of the restaurant in the text under each image, these link to pages where you can see both the cover and the text.

By: codacorolla

codacorolla — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 18:14:34 -0800

I love the Blackhawk one.

By: benito.strauss

benito.strauss — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 18:41:18 -0800

I love the Blackhawk one. My favorite too.

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 19:00:52 -0800

These are great -- I'm forwarding these to an artist friend. Love 'em.

By: RobotVoodooPower

RobotVoodooPower — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 19:16:48 -0800

My s/o and I have pledged to visit every restaurant in the continental U.S. which features a crustacean with a top hat (cane and monocle for bonus). But this is a cockroach! Not gonna do it!

By: George_Spiggott

George_Spiggott — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 19:17:09 -0800

If you like those, I recommend this book; it's immensely fun, with better entries than most of these. My copy is in a box somewhere but from memory I'm pretty sure it also has the Blackhawk Restaurant one.

By: kcds

kcds — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 04:56:18 -0800

>Beer is British, and McMahon Scottish Rage. Taking. Over.

By: jbickers

jbickers — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 07:17:48 -0800

For some reason, I'm drawn to any restaurant with the word "grotto" in its name.

By: Erberus

Erberus — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 13:02:45 -0800

You can see what's on the menus at restaurants from coast to coast, from the first part of the century to more modern eras: -The justifiably famous NYPL collection. -The collection at University of Washington. -UNLV's collection. -LAPL's collection. posted by librarylis at 1:45 AM on February 28 [4 favorites +] [!] It would interesting to see a kind of google trends for dishes (e.g. how particular ethnic cuisines spread). The NYPL one allows you to download all the data as a .csv, so I'm sort of tempted to actually do this...although it feels far too much like work.

By: librarylis

librarylis — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 13:44:42 -0800

Erberus, you can kind of get at what you're talking about through a combo of: The Food of a Younger Land: A portrait of American food-before the national highway system, before chain restaurants, and before frozen food, when the nation's food was seasonal and The United States of Arugula: The Sun Dried, Cold Pressed, Dark Roasted, Extra Virgin Story of the American Food Revolution and America Eats!: On the Road with the WPA - the Fish Fries, Box Supper Socials, and Chitlin Feasts That Define Real American Food (All three of those books are awesome and highly recommended on their own, especially if you have an interest in how American food became...American food). They're not exactly dead-on to what you're asking about, but they all get at your question in different ways.