LAPL's Menu Collection
December 17, 2002 2:46 PM   Subscribe

Christmas Dinner, 1884. A large online database of restaurant menus from the Los Angeles Public Library's collection. Dating from the 1860s to the 1990s, most are from California establishments. Part of this set of LA-related collections.
posted by staggernation (8 comments total)
 
Cool. I still have one question, though, about huge multi-course meals like that - how did anyone manage to eat that much food? I'm imagining a typical diner getting maybe a cup of soup, then a plate of fish, then a boiled thing - and that'd be my limit right there, even before the roasts and entrees(!). Do I just have a distorted view of what the meal was like?
posted by wanderingmind at 3:27 PM on December 17, 2002


A compliment to the New York Public Library's collection of menus.
posted by liam at 3:45 PM on December 17, 2002


Are my eyes deceiving me, or does the menu in the first link list "Antelope, Mountain Style" as an entree?
posted by 4easypayments at 4:37 PM on December 17, 2002


The LA database was linked here, in a thread based on the NYPL collection.
posted by languagehat at 5:40 PM on December 17, 2002


I don't know, could they possibly eat that much? Maybe they just picked a few things.
posted by rhyax at 5:45 PM on December 17, 2002


That does look to be "Antelope, Mountain Style". I wish they'd find a cookbook from then that explained exactly what that meant - Googling doesn't turn up much that's of any use.

And now that I think about it, the huge amounts of food actually seem reasonable if they're being served like a big Thanksgiving feast, where you're not really expected to eat everything, but they just put massive amounts of food out because - well - it's a roadhouse. It's going to have a few dozen hungry road-weary travelers over for dinner. The courses are probably staggered so the chef doesn't die of exhaustion preparing it all at once.
posted by wanderingmind at 6:47 PM on December 17, 2002


wanderingmind, I think many of these are menus for banquets, with many choices for each course.
posted by argybarg at 10:22 PM on December 17, 2002


The photo database is currently blowing my mind...

My dad's house is just cut off from this picture of Jordan High School in 1929.
posted by Katemonkey at 2:08 AM on December 18, 2002


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