Complaining about Amtrak food? Check out this 1899 menu

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Trollopian

Trollopian

OBS Chief
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Joined
Sep 19, 2014
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Washington, DC and Pittsburgh, PA
From today's Washington Post (article at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/01/26/the-strange-foods-that-americans-loved-a-century-ago/?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_wonk; a poor headline in my view, because there's nothing "strange" about most of the foods mentioned, like celery and the so-called alligator pear or avocado).

"It [the New York Public Library menu collection] 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." This was apparently for the funeral of Vice President Hobart, who was buried in Paterson, NJ. Maybe some of this forum's history buffs can tell us what route this train took.

Sorry I can't paste the image, but its filename appears to be https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2016/01/Pennsylvania-Railroad.jpeg&w=1484.
 
Nothing seems that strange, except for the "boneless bacon."

Since Patterson is in the New York City area, I would assume the president rode what is today's Northeast Corridor from Washington to Newark.
 
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Cho Cho Charlie said:
Was that a special menu, because the POTUS was on board?
Click to expand...
Good question, C.C. Charlie....and I expect that the answer is "yes," because I don't see any price printed at the bottom. But it also looks pretty typical for that route. Compare it, for example, with this 1893 menu also in the NYPL collection, which lists (among other things) blue points, spring lamb with mint sauce, duchess potatoes, some dubious "spaghetti, italienne," and much else. (No boneless bacon, however.) Price: one dollar.

http://menus.nypl.org/menu_pages/25900
 
I want to say Patterson is in Lackawanna territory. So I would say PRR to Newark maybe even Hoboken before backtracking to Paterson. That would be the most likely route. Of course it could have been a B&O route with the CNJ and then the DLW.
 
$1 then would be $26.61 now (more or less). And the 1893 menu looks pretty good to me. Though it's pretty pretentious to put "Cafe Noir" on the menu (that would be "Black Coffee").
 
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My family used to enjoy a meal of potatoes, boiled bacon and cabbage... yep, they were Irish... The bacon was a "hock", and had a bone through it... I guess a salted version of a ham bone joint?

Been many years since I ate such a meal myself... looking forward to curry and rice tonight!

Ed. :cool:
 
Here's the image pasted:

iH63rzN.jpg
 

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