Arri London wrote:
>
> 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

Yabbut... lobster ravioli, seafood risotto, etc.? That sounds
most improbable to me.

--
Jean B.