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Old Menus


Kim Shook

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I looked and couldn't find this topic - if it exists, just tag this onto the existing thread.

 

I love old menus.  If I needed to start another collection, that's what I'd collect.  I do sometimes come across them, though, and keep them.  Of course, I can't find the others right now!  But Mr. Kim and I were down in Reidsville NC going through stuff at my late grandmother's house.  I found a menu from the "Pig N Whistle" in Tunica Mississippi.  This location doesn't seem to exist anymore and the Pig N Whistle in Millington TN (about an hour away from Tunica) seems to be mainly BBQ.  But there is some connection because they both claim to be named after a tradition of a tavern in England.  My mother's family is from the Mississippi Delta - Memphis, Shelby MS, Clarksdale MS, and Rosedale MS mostly.  So, I'm guessing that this was a "nice place" to go for a "nice meal" for them.  @kayb - do you know anything about this place?  The menu:

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47 minutes ago, Kim Shook said:

I love old menus.

 

Me too.

 

Many years ago I bought a book called "Menus". That's all it was - lots of menus. Loved it. No idea what happened to it.

Here is one I came across on the interwebs recently.

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Sweet OR sour?

And I'll bet there were no bird's nests in that bird's nest soup.

But glad to see another confirmation that wontons and ravioli are essentially the same thing.

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...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

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1 hour ago, Kim Shook said:

I actually remember going to the Trader Vic's in Washington DC as a kid.

 

I'll bet the most expensive dish on the menu wasn't $3.25, though!

I remember the first time I went to a Chinese restaurant. In the UK in 1969. It billed itself as "authentic", but I now know no Chinese person would have recognized much! Perhaps rice. Only perhaps!

 

But  I was with my much more sophisticated than me new girlfriend with whom I was completely in lust love, so I didnt and still don't care! Wonder what happened to her.

Edited by liuzhou (log)
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...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

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6 hours ago, Kim Shook said:

I looked and couldn't find this topic - if it exists, just tag this onto the existing thread.

 

I love old menus.  If I needed to start another collection, that's what I'd collect.  I do sometimes come across them, though, and keep them.  Of course, I can't find the others right now!  But Mr. Kim and I were down in Reidsville NC going through stuff at my late grandmother's house.  I found a menu from the "Pig N Whistle" in Tunica Mississippi.  This location doesn't seem to exist anymore and the Pig N Whistle in Millington TN (about an hour away from Tunica) seems to be mainly BBQ.  But there is some connection because they both claim to be named after a tradition of a tavern in England.

 

 

 

There was a Pig & Whistle pub in Vancouver decades ago, when I first moved there. I'm in no position to say how authentic it was, having never been to the UK, though the couple who owned it were Brits. I don't have a menu, but I don't remember the food so that probably says something in an of itself.

 

There was also a television show by that name on the CTV network for several years, but the "pub" where it took place was just a set. The entertainers played traditional Irish/Scottish/English music.

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“Who loves a garden, loves a greenhouse too.” - William Cowper, The Task, Book Three

 

"Not knowing the scope of your own ignorance is part of the human condition...The first rule of the Dunning-Kruger club is you don’t know you’re a member of the Dunning-Kruger club.” - psychologist David Dunning

 

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On 9/5/2019 at 6:51 PM, chromedome said:

I'm in no position to say how authentic it was, having never been to the UK

 

There are dozens of pubs in the UK called the Pig and Whistle. Which one is the authentic one to which the others should aspire? None.

Edited by liuzhou (log)

...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

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This puts me in mind of the old Pig 'n Whistle on Union Avenue in Memphis, which closed in the 70s. Similar menu, from what I remember. I don't ever remember a Pig n Whistle in Tunica; we always either went to the Hollywood Cafe, or the Blue and White, which is one of those marvelous breakfast places. (It is, in fact, a white building with a bright blue roof.)

 

 

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Don't ask. Eat it.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I don't know if this qualifies for this topic, but I have a collection of the menus from my voyage to Europe in 1969 on Holland America's Amsterdam. Here I was, a 21-year-old kid fresh from college, confronted by some of the most exotic (to me at the time) selections of "Continental" cuisine. Three meals a day and a midnight buffet, plus consomme and snacks all day long. The point being that if one's tummy was full and one was showing up for meals, one wouldn't suffer from seasickness. Seemed to work. That and liberal application of spirits, and I don't mean little gossamer creatures floating around in dark corners.

 

Every now and then I take out those menus, which were printed on heavy paper stock with illustrations from Dutch country scenes, and reminisce. I stayed in Europe until the money ran out and I had to call my parents (remember those phone booths?) to  send me enough $$ for a plane ticket. Flew out of Munich to London and then to Denver on BOAC, but the Munich leg took off late because the flight originated in West Berlin and the East Germans routinely hassled airliners, delaying arrivals. So we all stood in line in London to rebook, including Martha Raye, who was in her US Army uniform (she was a nurse).

 

Boy, does this bring back memories! I wonder if meals on the modern ships are anything like the ones on the Amsterdam. Anybody know how the food is?

 

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

 

Nancy in Pátzcuaro

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Formerly "Nancy in CO"

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1 hour ago, Nancy in Pátzcuaro said:

I don't know if this qualifies for this topic, but I have a collection of the menus from my voyage to Europe in 1969 on Holland America's Amsterdam. Here I was, a 21-year-old kid fresh from college, confronted by some of the most exotic (to me at the time) selections of "Continental" cuisine. Three meals a day and a midnight buffet, plus consomme and snacks all day long. The point being that if one's tummy was full and one was showing up for meals, one wouldn't suffer from seasickness. Seemed to work. That and liberal application of spirits, and I don't mean little gossamer creatures floating around in dark corners.

 

Every now and then I take out those menus, which were printed on heavy paper stock with illustrations from Dutch country scenes, and reminisce. I stayed in Europe until the money ran out and I had to call my parents (remember those phone booths?) to  send me enough $$ for a plane ticket. Flew out of Munich to London and then to Denver on BOAC, but the Munich leg took off late because the flight originated in West Berlin and the East Germans routinely hassled airliners, delaying arrivals. So we all stood in line in London to rebook, including Martha Raye, who was in her US Army uniform (she was a nurse).

 

Boy, does this bring back memories! I wonder if meals on the modern ships are anything like the ones on the Amsterdam. Anybody know how the food is?

 

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

 

Nancy in Pátzcuaro

 

Let’s see some menus!

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22 hours ago, Katie Meadow said:

The Titanic menus are remarkable. The Triple Screw says it all. And for breakfast it's nice they give you a choice between fresh fish and not-so-fresh fish, which is what the Yarmouth Bloaters must be.

 

 

Nothing wrong with bloaters. They're just cold-smoked herring.

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...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

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  • 8 months later...

 

6 hours ago, Drew777 said:

I happen to know that one of the great libraries in NYC has a fine and extensive collection of "old" menus.  Google some research and you'll find it.

 

Many libraries have collections of menus, including the British library which has a huge collection.

 

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2 hours ago, liuzhou said:

 

 

Many libraries have collections of menus, including the British library which has a huge collection.

 

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Good thing Dick's is one minute from New Law Courts. Very convenient if you sue Dick after you  have a heart attack.

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  • 2 months later...

Hi Kim,  My grandfather was an owner at one time of this restaurant in Tunica and of a restaurant of same name in Memphis Tn (there may have been two in Memphis, I forget).  Old ads for the Pig N' Whistle from the 1930s and 1940s can been seen on the website for the SW'wester, the student newspaper for what is now Rhodes College in Memphis.  See also https://memphismagazine.com/ask-vance/lost-memphis-the-pig-n-whistle/

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6 hours ago, Cross said:

Hi Kim,  My grandfather was an owner at one time of this restaurant in Tunica and of a restaurant of same name in Memphis Tn (there may have been two in Memphis, I forget).  Old ads for the Pig N' Whistle from the 1930s and 1940s can been seen on the website for the SW'wester, the student newspaper for what is now Rhodes College in Memphis.  See also https://memphismagazine.com/ask-vance/lost-memphis-the-pig-n-whistle/

How cool!  It must have been a special place to them because they kept the menu all those years.  I wonder if my grandfather knew yours?  Thanks for the link to the article.  

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