Are you amazed by the menus in the proper restaurants that you visit? As they appear to be common items in such restaurants, have you ever wondered how they are created and prepared?
Well I do and that's why I made a brief research on this interesting topic.
When I go to a restaurant (an average quality restaurant) and handed a menu by the waiter/waitress, I try to concentrate on that piece of paper. I try to catch some clues about the restaurant, the food and their quality. I assure you, one can get genuine ideas just by looking at the menu: its consistency, its wholeness and the effort behind will tell you a lot of things about your experience (obviously there are exceptions, but generally yes). Those menus if crafted well, can cause you gulp with hunger or make you wear a smile (as is the case in my country especially with the poor English translations).
It is believed that the first menu in history dates back to an unknown Egyptian Prince. It was discovered by William Cristal in 1922 during a tomb excavation near the pyramids. It was written in hieroglyphics and carved into a clay tablet. It is understood that the menu belongs to a feast in order to celebrate the births of the Prince's twin sons (future pharaohs). The menu read sour cream garlics and barley soup, followed by salmon and roasted pig. For deserts; cake dipped in honey, dates and pomegranates.
The menus, until the 19th century, were mainly used to help the kitchen staff to instruct them which food to prepare and when to prepare, rather than a guidance for the diners. Such usage has been common in European royal households. During the Renaissance period, the menus have enormously extended. Food historians say that on a regular day in the palace of the King of Piedmont, chefs had prepared eight different menus that consisted of at least 6 different dishes. One important detail is that the guests had to taste everything in order not to offend the host. You can imagine the size of the feasts...
Until the mid 18th century, the inns were the only alternatives to dine out. People visited the inns for spending the night during their travels and/or simply to eat a hot meal. Such establishments did not offer their guests a menu but offered them what was available and prepared on a daily basis. Therefore, the limited choices were posted on a board and had to be enjoyed by all whether rich or poor. Of course this was not a pleasant situation for the rich. Noticing this, the innkeepers started to set up a new class of inns serving the upper class of the society (let's say 5 star inns đ). These inns employed qualified waiters/waitresses who could speak Italian, English and French. The chefs announced the daily menus via these educated staff by shouting in the dining area on an hourly basis.
La Tour D'Argent, the first restaurant in the world that the fork was used, opened its doors in Paris in 1582, and it did not give its customers the opportunity to choose from various alternatives of food for almost 200 years.
The menus as we know today, with choices and pricing information, did not appear until the end of the 18th century. The first real menus were presented to customers in France and they offered a wide variety of dining options according to diners' budgets. The French restaurants made this process possible by "Escriteau", a board that includes the dish names along with their prices placed in front of an inn or a restaurant. The English people travelling to France liked the idea very much and they copied this system in their pubs. This tradition still goes on in both countries.
Old menu from France
The process of a waiter/waitress handing out menus to the diners sitting at a table started in the 19th century. As can be imagined, in the beginning, this was a gesture made only for the royal guests but thanks to its convenience, it spread out very quickly all over the fine restaurants in Europe and became the general practice after 1850.
Old menu from Angier House
There is an interesting story from 1867 about a fabulous menu created for three important guests, Czar Alexander the 2nd, his son and King of Prussia. The event, taking place in Café Anglais in Paris, is known as the"Dinner of the Three Emperors". The dinner consisted of 16 different dishes and 8 different wines and lasted 8 hours. The menu created by Adolphe Dugléré was like this;
- Soups:
- Impéatrice: chicken soup with tapioca
- Fontanges: stock with pea puree and mushrooms
- Big Meat Items (not individually served):
- Soufflé a la Reine: Chicken souffle with truffles
- Filets de sole à la vénitienne: Sole fish with wine sauce
- Escalope de turbot au gratin: Turbot
- Selle de mouton purée Bretonne: Saddle of mouton with bean puree
- Entrees:
- Poulet Ă la portugaise: Chicken with adobo paste
- Pùté chaud de cailles: Quail pate
- Homard Ă la parisienne: Lobster
- Roasts:
- Canetons Ă la rouennaise: Roasted ducklings
- Ortolans sur canapés: Ortolans on toast
- Side Dishes:
- Aubergines Ă l'espagnole: Eggplant dish
- Asperges en branches: Asparagus
- Cassolette princesse: Potatoes with cream sauce
- Desserts:
- Bombe glacée: Ice cream desert
- Fruits: Various fruits
- Wines & Champagne:
- MadĂšre retour de l'Inde 1810
- XĂ©rĂšs 1821
- ChĂąteaux d'Yquem 1847
- Chambertin 1846
- ChĂąteaux Margaux 1847
- ChĂąteau Latour 1847
- ChĂąteaux Lafite 1848
- Champagne Roederer
Café Anglais in Paris
Late 19th century, almost all the restaurants in the world, had menus as we know today. There was even a competition amongst restaurants to create the best menu design. La Tour D'Argent in 1868, printed a 22 page menu. Lapérouse also in Paris, prepared a 6 page menu with gold plated letters. Some great artists, such as Henri de Toulouse Lautrec, Renoir, Matisse and Gauguin designed menus for some upscale restaurants, sometimes in exchange of money and sometimes in exchange of food...A rumor says that Renoir has prepared a menu for his favorite restaurant and has never paid for food after that.
Delmonico's Old Menu
Another change took place in 1920, almost simultaneously all over the world, the restaurants started to have multiple copies of their menus in order to save time.
The first fixed price menu was introduced in the "Fred Harvey" diner in Chicago, offering its customers "fried fish in tomato sauce" or "grilled steak" and potato puree, cauliflower, bread, desert and coffee on the side for 70 cents. The European version can be found in a Cambridge pub called "The Bull and The Bear" for 40 pence.
Fred Harvey menu from the 1940s
Some interesting highlights about menus. The longest menu in the world could have been seen in a diner in Newark airport (now closed), consisting of 50 starters, 40 soups, 300 sandwiches, 200 salads, 400 main courses and 200 deserts. And the shortest menu in history was a blank page given to the Lord of Halifax by his chef on the day of his resignation.
I hope you will enjoy the restaurant menus more from now on, read them, analyze them and appreciate them. And don't forget that there is always a good story behind them...
Interesting video on Menus
No comments:
Post a Comment