If you had been vegan in the 19th century, what could you have ordered off a restaurant menu? And how would your options have improved over time? New York Public Library’s historical menu collection can help answer those questions. The collection holds almost 50,000 menus from restaurants and hotels across the United States, about a quarter of which have been digitized and transcribed so the public can browse them online.
“I think menus are fascinating cultural artifacts that help us understand immigration, urban development, [and] food history,” said Rebecca Federman, who has worked with the menus at the library for more than a decade and now manages the collection. “But in a larger context, they can reveal far more.”
As just a few examples, Federman said contemporary chefs have consulted the collection for inspiration, and authors have used it in search of details to…