SteveB wrote:
>
> We went to The Cosmopolitan in Silver Reef, Utah, last night. It was just
> okay. The site was the actual site of a restaurant there from about 1880 to
> about 1895. The recreation wasn't even close to the original. Although the
> restaurant calls itself a four star restaurant, I found it only passable.
> The lobster bisque was lacking a lobster taste. I had seafood risotto. The
> plate had some shrimp and langostino which were represented to be lobsters.
> It had some salmon, scallops, and sole, also. My wife had lobster ravioli,
> and they were skimpy on the lobster.
>
> Anyway, we looked at the menu, and it has some old pictures, and historical
> data on it.
>
> I was wondering what anyone here (who actually knows, that is) could offer
> about restaurants of that era. Without refrigeration, the menu had to be
> "different". I would wonder what the common fare was in restaurants at that
> time, and what the common fare would have been say, for a boarding house,
> and for the common household.
>
> This lovely place is in a historic ghost town. When driving there, we saw
> about thirty deer, so fresh deer probably would have been a staple. I know
> that in many restaurants, fresh game and fowl were common, as was commercial
> hunting without restrictions from Fish and Game Departments.
>
> Anyone care to comment?
>
> Steve

Keep in mind that between the railroads and readily available ice, lack
of refrigeration wasn's necessarily a drawback.

Here is a partial menu from the Tremont House in Boston, August 1847:

Boiled salmon, anchovy sauce
Boiled corned beef and cabbage
Boiled corned pork
Boiled tongue
Boiled leg of mutton, caper sauce
Boiled chickens and oyster sauce

Then follows a list of dishes in French (partial):

Pate aux huitres (pate of oysters)
..
Canards aux olives (duck with olives)
..
Rognons de boeuf a l'espagnole (Beef kidneys with espagnole sauce)
..
Tautog cuit au vin rouge (blackfish/black porgy in red wine)

Roast beef, chickens, ham, plover etc
Potatoes, green corn, squash, shelled beans, turnips, tomatoes etc
Sago puddings, tomato pies, berry pies, squash pies, macaroons, cream
cakes etc
Apples, peaches, whortleberries, Minorca melons, pecan nuts, hickory
nuts, watermelons etc

Admittedly the Tremont was an upper-crust sort of place, but other large
restaurants would have had similar menus.

The Harvey House chain, the first in the US was built along the Santa Fe
railway (Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe).

For 75 cents customers could choose from: 'fresh oysters, sea turtle,
roast beef, olives, cheeses pastries, ice cream and charlotte of peaches
with Cognac sauce. A breakfast of steak, eggs, hashed browns, six
wheatcakes, apple pie and coffee cost thirty-five cents. And since no
passenger whould have to eat the same meal twice, Harvey offered
completely different meals at every stop, with menus changed every four
days and recipes roated from restaurant to restaurant. He used local
provender and even ran his own dairy farms to ensure the quallity of his
milk, cream, eggs, and butter.'

Both lists from: America Eats Out by John Mariani