NYPL Blogs: What's on the Menu?

Saluting S.S. President Johnson

Rebecca Federman, Collections Strategy, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 10:10:30 -0400

As you might have noticed, the transcription queue has been fairly text-heavy lately. The Hotels Commodore, Astor, Mc Alpin, and Pierre are well-represented, and the sheer number of dishes on each of their menus can quickly fatigue one's fingers.

But every so often, amidst the towering hotels, something different pops up. Recently, the lovely menus of the S.S. President Johnson have been floating up to the surface, whisking us away from midtown Manhattan to the larger world of Japanese cherry blossoms, California redwood forests, and the Taj Mahal.

The S.S. President Johnson was christened in 1928, but has a much longer history as the Manchuria. The Manchuria was first a passenger liner and then served as a transport ship for the Navy during World War I. Between the Wars, the Manchuria was renamed the S.S. President Johnson and began its travels around the world with Dollar Steamship Lines. These menus are from those travels.

Happy Birthday to... Us! A Year of Menus

Rebecca Federman, Collections Strategy, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 09:10:18 -0400

It's hard to believe, but a year ago this week the New York Public Library launched What's on the Menu?!

Two days in from our very first Tweet, we had 1,000 dishes transcribed. As of this writing, we have 866,636 dishes dishes transcribed and we're not done yet.

We still have many more menus to digitize and we're working hard on new ways to make the site even easier to navigate and use.

But before the next year begins, Michael Inman, Ben Vershbow, and I wanted to take the time to say a sincere, bow-down, "you rock" thank you to those who have put in time to make this project a success, starting with all of you.

When we launched WOTM? last April, we had no idea what the response of the project would be. Apparently, you like it. And we're beyond thankful to all of you who have spent time transcribing menus, writing in with suggestions, questions, and helpful comments. We wouldn't be here without your help.

But like a real restaurant, there are many cooks in the WOTM? kitchen who have done so much to help move this project forward. We'd like to thank:

Michael Lascarides and Kris Kelly for building the site as a labor of love.

The National Endowment for the Humanities for their financial and intellectual support.

To the American Historical Association for giving us the honor of the Roy Rosenzweig Prize.

To the Institute of Museum and Library Services for their Sparks! support.

Our interns: Edith Bellinghausen, Jayme Hall, Leslie Harker, and especially Amanda Glassman who kept the engine running and Twitter tweeting — even while low on gas.

Rebecca Austin, Kate Summers, and Lucy Daniel Anderson for re-cataloging the physical menus to include the proper metadata.

Pat Rader and Abigail Meisterman in our metadata team for helping us in those choppy waters.

Eric Shows, Terrance D'Ambrosio, and the entire Digital Imaging Unit for scanning the menus and pushing them live.

Rebecca Holte and Caryn Gedell in the Registrars Office for moving the menus safely.

NYPL Labs: Dave Riordan, Mauricio Giraldo, and Zeeshan Lakhani for their skills and good humor.

And finally, to Ann Thornton and the New York Public Library staff for their continued support and encouragement.

The next course on this tasting menu will be arriving shortly.

Maury and the Menu: A Brief History of the Cunard Steamship Company

Thu, 30 Jun 2011 12:05:38 -0400

In 1907 the Cunard Steamship Company launched the first of their Express Liners, the Lusitania and the Mauretania, ships that become bywords for speed, luxury and elegance in transatlantic travel. They were the first of the "Grand Hotels" at sea, sister ships each as long as the Capitol Building (and, interestingly, the Houses of Parliament), that came equipped with palm courts, orchestras, a la carte restaurants, electric lifts, telephones, and daily newspapers printed at sea. They were the first big British liners to be powered by four revolutionary Parsons steam turbine engines, and each had a top speed of over 25 knots. Unsurprisingly, both went on to hold the Blue Riband for fastest Atlantic crossing, and the Mauritania held the record for fastest eastbound crossing for nearly 20 years, between 1909 and 1929. Though always reknowned for their safety, Cunard ships did not always have a reputation for carrying passengers in speed and comfort...

The New York Public Library's What's on the Menu? transcription project includes a selection of menus from Cunard ships, including the Etruria (launched 1884), Campania (1893), Lucania (1893) and Mauretania (1907). Taken from the Library's extensive Menu Collection, one menu, dated Tuesday, November 26th, 1907, is for a luncheon served in the First Class Dining Saloon of the Mauretania. According to The New York Times the diners were not passengers, but 300 guests of the Cunard Line invited to inspect the "new quadruple turbine liner [...] at her pier." Built in Wallsend, Tyne and Wear in the North-East of England, by the Swan, Hunter and Wigham Richardson Company, work on the Mauretania began in 1903. The ship was launched by the Dowager Duchess of Roxburghe, September 20th, 1906, and fitting out completed by 1907. Maury, as the ship came to be known, weighed 32,000 tons, was 790 feet long by 88 feet wide, with room for 2,165 passengers and 800 crew. When launched she was "the largest moving structure ever built". During speed trials security surrounding news of the Mauretania's performance was so tight that carrier pigeons were used to maintain confidentiality.

Twenty eight different woods were used to decorate the ship, and furnishings and tapestries were hand made to the height of Edwardian taste. Harold A. Peto, an architect famous for country house interior design work in Britain was hired to oversee decoration. Scientific American described the Dining Saloon as arranged on two levels and decorated in a style known as Francois Premier, with richly carved woodwork and panelling, a "loftily groined dome [...] the crown of which terminates in a gilded convex disk, round which runs a balustrade sheltering hidden electric lights." Beneath the enormous glass dome, chairs and tables were arranged to give diners a good view of their fellow passengers. After their meal, diners could smoke a cigar in the plush, Walnut pannelled First-Class Smoking Room, or relax in the First-Class Lounge. They could order coffee in the very first covered Verandah Cafe, or take a stroll around the the ship's observation deck, situated under the Pilot House and the first to offer protection from the elements.

The Mauretania made her maiden voyage from Liverpool to New York, November 16th, 1907, and was waved off by a crowd of over 50,000 well wishers. The ship was widely anticipated to break the westbound tranatlantic crossing record set by the Lusitania two weeks before and capture what would informally become known as the Blue Riband. Unfortunately rough weather meant that this did not happen - although the title would be captured two years later - but despite this there was still great interest surrounding the ship's arrival in New York. British and American newspapers covered not only the story of the Mauretania's maiden voyage, but also her commissioning, construction, launch, and speed trials.

With the arrival of the Lusitania - or Lucy - and the Mauretania, Cunard not only reclaimed the Blue Riband, but also cornered the market in luxury and opulence in a way that it had hitherto failed to do.

Cunard began life in 1839, as the British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, created ostensibly to win a contract to ship the Royal Mail from Great Britain to Canada and the United States. The business came to be known as the Cunard Company, after founder Samuel Cunard, a Nova Scotian shipping entrapaneur. Inspired by the revolutionary work of Isambard Kingdom Brunel and his "mammoth" steam ship the Great Eastern, Cunard, and his business partners George Burns and David McIver, envisioned a network of Transtlantic shipping lanes along the lines of, and completing links between, railways and roads in Europe and America. He realised that ships powered by steam would not depend upon the wind to get them from A to B, and so could operate on a schedule with the same punctuality as the railroads.

Cunard commissioned the construction of five transatlantic steamers, the first of which was the Britannia. In his book The Cunard Story, historian Howard Johnson describes the Britannia as an inelegant paddle steamer, a "two-decker with one tall orange-red funnel amidships." Launched in 1840, the 207-foot long, 1,145 ton Cunarder made her first voyage July 4th that year, sailing from Liverpool bound for Halifax, Nova Scotia and Boston. On board were 63 passengers (including Cunard and the Bishop of Nova Scotia and his family), 93 crew, Her Majesty's Mail, and one cow: the latter to supply fresh milk. The ship was commanded by one Captain Woodruff, R.N., who barked orders at his crew through a speaking trumpet. When the sea was rough it took as many as four sailors to man the ship's wheel. The steamer completed her journey in 12 days and 12 hours, and would go on to hold the record for the fastest eastbound Atlantic crossing. The same journey by sail could take as much as 35 days.

The image left shows the Britannia in full sail. Sails were seldom used as a method of propulsion, but rather to help stabilize the ship in rough weather. The Royal Navy preferred sail to steam until 1869, and transatlantic steam ships kept their sails until the 1880s: the last Cunard ship to have sails was the Etruria, launched in 1884.

In 1842 Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine were passengers aboard the Britannia. According to the ship's passenger list, they set sail from Liverpool bound for Boston, where the 30 year old author was to begin his first tour of the United States. Dickens wrote about the 18 day voyage in some detail, in the second chapter of American Notes. Seemingly something of a gourmand, he included a description of the food served on ship.

At one, a bell rings, and the stewardess comes down with a steaming dish of baked potatoes, and another of roasted apples; and plates of pig’s face, cold ham, salt beef; or perhaps a smoking mess of rare hot collops [slices of meat]. […] At five, another bell rings, and the stewardess reappears with another dish of potatoes - boiled this time - and store of hot meat of various kinds […] We […] prolong the meal with a rather mouldy desert of apples, grapes, and oranges; and drink our wine and brandy-and-water. The bottles and glasses are still upon the table, and oranges and so forth are rolling about, according to their fancy and the ship's way [...] (26-27)

Conditions aboard early Cunard ships were spartan. The cabins were typically eight by six feet, with two bunks, a hard settee, a commode with two wash basins, two water jugs and two chamber pots. Dicken’s described the saloon, where passenger’s dined, as resembling “a gigantic hearse with […] a melancholy stove, at which three or four chilly stewards [warmed] their hands.” (24)

An unnamed passenger travelling from Boston to Liverpool in 1840, wrote to his father that the food was “carried over open decks [and] sometimes cold, […] fresh food for the first three days and thereafter the fish and meat is salted. Britannia has two ice rooms and the fruit is stored there […] During the journey I counted pea soup nine times and the ubiquitous Sea Pie was on the menu everyday.”

Rules on board ship ordered that "state-rooms (cabins) be swept, and carpets taken out and shaken every morning after breakfast. To be washed once a week if the weather is dry. [...] That bedding be turned over as soon as passengers quit their cabins. That slops be emptied and basins cleaned at the same time. Passengers are requested not to open their scuttles [portholes] when there is a chance of their bedding being wetted. [...] The Wine and Spirits Bar will be opened to passengers at 6 a.m., and closed at 11 p.m."

Though the Britannia did have some luxury furnishings, "carpet's and brocades" for instance, these were removed once a voyage began, as the majority of the rooms, corridors and cabins, were soon awash with sea water, and possessions were often soaked. In addition to this passengers suffering from "mal-de-mer" had a habit of "tainting" the finery once the "vessel commenced to roll." Stewards would tend to sea sick passengers, running from cabin to cabin, issuing rations of brandy to the numerous and unfortunate land lubbers. If passengers could stomach it, the bar was open at 6 a.m. and here diners could order steak with a bottle of hock. The Britannia continued to steam back and forth across the Atlantic until she was sold to the North German Navy in 1849, and renamed Barbarossa. She reputedly ended her days rather ignominiously, as a hulk used for target practice, sunk by the Prussian Navy.

What early Cunard ships lacked in luxury, or even comfort, they made up for by being safe and reliable. Cunard steamers were well-built, with experienced and reputable captains and crew, initially hand picked by David McIver, himself a former ship's captain. Dickens, despite not having the most pleasurable of journeys, was, once on dry land, full of praise for the ship's captain, one John Hewitt. He addressed captain Hewitt as a man who would live in the memory, and who had returned his passengers to "the pleasure of those homes and firesides from which they once wandered, and which [...] they might never have regained." Between 1840 and the First World War Cunard lost only three ships. Of those, the Columbia (1841), one of the original five Cunarders, was wrecked off the coast of Seal Island, Halifax, and the Oregon (1883) sank in 1886, with no loss of life (or mail) in either case.

In the 1850s Cunard's main competitors were the Collins Line (or Arctic, Pacific and Baltic Line), founded in 1850 by New Yorker Edward Knight Collins, and the Inman Line, set up in 1850 by William Inman, a shipping company that pioneered transporting emigrants to the New World.

Collins Line ships - notibly the Arctic, Atantic, Pacific and Baltic - were bigger, faster and more luxurious than those of the Cunard fleet, and came with bathrooms, steam-heat, flowered carpets, velvet sofas, and barber shops. The Collins Line was an instant hit, eclipsing the popularity of Cunard, especially as the latter's ships were taken out of service to act as hosptal ships and troop carriers during the Crimean War. The Inman Line introduced two ships, the City of Glasgow and the City of Manchester, both featuring new double iron-screw propulsion, replacing paddles, and freeing up space for more passengers. In 1852 the former was adapted specifically to carry 400 steerage class passengers, the first ship to do so. The Inman Line soon cornered the market in emigrant passengers, and was also a commercial success.

Unfortunately both shipping lines, like many of Cunard's competitors in the mid to late-nineteenth century, were accident-prone. The Collins Line lost the Arctic in 1854, with the loss of 322 lives, including Collins's wife and daughter, and the Pacific, with the loss of 186 lives. The Inman Line was similarly beset with tragedy: between 1854, with the sinking of the City of Glasgow and the loss of 480 lives, a further eight ships were sunk, burnt or wrecked in bad weather. Both companies were heavily hit by these losses and either disappeared or were swallowed up in mergers.

Under pressure from new shipping companies like the White Star Line, Guion, and Norddeutscher Lloyd, Cunard started to focus on offering speed and comfort as well as safety in their passenger liners. The official Cunard web site suggests that "the great international race for supremacy of the North Atlantic" started with the launch of two ships, the Campania and her sister ship, the Lucania, built by the Fairfield Co. Ltd, in Glasgow, and launched in 1893. Each was constructed of steel, weighed 12,950 tonnes, used the latest twin-screw propellors, and had a top speed of 21 knots. They were the biggest and fastest transatlantic ships of their day, carrying 600 First Class, 400 Second Class, and 1000 Third Class passengers.

The Lucania was the first ship to have single birth cabins, and suites (two cabins with a sitting room between them). Each principal room had a fire grate, and the drawing room was decorated with satinwood walls, cedar mouldings, and a ceiling of ivory and guilding. The ship was furnished with Persian carpets, velvet settees and chairs, with brocade, and a grand piano and an American organ. The ladies rooms were scented with freshly cut geraniums, and the Italian-style dining room included Ionic columns and Spanish mahogany walls. First Class passengers could expect to dine on Little Neck Clams, Chicken Okra, Petit Filet de Boeuf ala Parisienne, Timbales a la Richelieu, Roast Qual on Toast a la Monglas, and Neopolitan Ice Cream. Over a breakfast of Broiled Sausages, or Veal Cutlets with Tomato Sauce, passengers could read the very latest news: thanks to onboard experiments by Marconi, the Lucania featured the first ship's newspaper to appear daily with news recieved by wireless.

Despite these advances Cunard still lagged behind her competitors, who continued to build bigger and better ships. Determined to become market leaders once more, Cunard began negotiations with the British government to secure loans to build two massive luxury ocean liners, ones that would capture not only the Blue Riband, but also more passengers. Prime Minister Arthur Balfour gave the go ahead for a state-funded loan to build the Lusitania and the Mauretania, on the proviso that they be constructed to be "convertible to the requirements of the Admiralty as auxillary armed cruisers in time of war." The Lusitania never saw active service: she was sunk by a German U-Boat in 1915, with the loss of 1,198 lives. The Mauretania never became an armed cruiser - she was too big - but spent much of the 1914-18 war transporting troops, most notably 10,000 soldiers to Gallipoli. Later she operated as a hospital ship, finally returning to the North Atantic as a high speed troop carrier, transporting many thousands of US troops to and from the conflict in Europe.

Following the war the Mauretania returned to civilian service, operating between Southampton and New York from 1920 on. Maury became something of a celebrity. In 1922 when the ship returned to the Tyne for a refit thousands of spectators turned out to welcome her home. Franklin D. Roosevelt, a man not fond of sea travel, described the ship as having a "soul that you could talk to." Novelist Theodore Dreiser wrote

It was a beautiful thing all told - it's long cherry-wood panelled halls, its heavy porcelain baths, its dainty state rooms fitted with lamps, bureaus, writing desks, wash-stands, closets and the like. [...] the bugler who bugled for dinner! [...] as if to say "This is a very joyous event, ladies and gentlemen. We are all happy; come, come; it is a delightful feast."

The Mauretania was even the inspiration for a song, written by Goodwin and Brown, titled "He's On A Boat That Sailed Last Wednesday (He's Coming Home)." The ship remained Cunard's premier liner for most of the twenties, until 1929, when the Blue Riband was captured by the German liner Bremen. In 1930 the ship's captain opened up the engines and made one last attempt to recapture the record, reaching a creditable 30 knots, but this wasn't quite quick enough. With a new decade the ship's Edwardian fixtures and fittings seemed old fashioned, and so, following a spell cruising the Caribbean, the Mauretania was decommissioned. Steaming past the Tyne and the Swan, Hunter and Wigham Richardson shipyard, on her way to the breaker's yard in 1935, Maury signalled the men who had built her: "Goodbye, Tyneside. This is my last radio. Closing down for ever. Mauretania." Thousands of people lined the shore, while a flotilla of ships accompanied her on her way, and the assemble crowd sang "Auld Lang Syne." One eye witness reported seeing his father, and dozens of other men like him, who had built the ship, their faces "wet with tears."

Cunard would go on to build bigger, faster and perhaps more famous luxury Express Liners, most notably the ship that was to replace the Mauretania, the Queen Mary, and later the Queen Elizabeth and Queen Elizabeth 2. By the 1950s and 60s, however, with the advent of commercial air travel, the era of the great transatlantic ocean liners was drawing to a close.

Links:

New York Public Library: What's on the Menu?

Ocean Liners -- History

Cunard Steamship Company Ltd.

Tyne and Wear Archives: Mauretania

Search Cunard Ships at the Cunard Heritage web site.

A Selection of images of the interior of the Mauretania, taken from R.M.S. "Lusitania" and "Mauretania" Coronation Booklet, Ed. Deluxe, 1911.

Hold the Applause! Testimonial Menus

Rebecca Federman, Collections Strategy, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building — Thu, 12 May 2011 11:50:19 -0400

Perhaps you’ve noticed a few more people joining the menu party lately. The Buncombe County Medical Association is here. As are our friends from the National Life Insurance Company. We’ve even extended an invite to our canine crew (and their owners) from the Philadelphia Dog Show Association.

Clubs, organizations, companies, and associations often hosted an annual dinner, usually at a hotel or large restaurant, to reflect on the year’s accomplishments and perhaps to recruit new members, but their menus differ widely. Some, like the National Life Insurance Co., treated its members to a wide variety of foods, from sweetbread croquettes to lobster salad. Others, like the dog show, kept the food offerings simple with the ubiquitous Blue Points and Waldorf Salad.

But some of these menus go well beyond the one-pager or folder, and flirt with the size of a pamphlet, managing to fit in addition to the menu, toasts, songs, names of board members, hymns, psalms, and much more into a complete souvenir program. Like this example from dinner by the St. George's Society in New York in 1900. Far more than a menu, this booklet includes not only toasts to the Queen and to the President of the United States, but to the Day, to the Land, to the Colonies, to the Sister Societies, and (finally) to the Ladies. And for those who need a little extra help, lyrics to God Save the Queen and The Star Spangled Banner.

Or this graphically arresting menu from the National Shorthand Reporters Banquet, also in 1900, held at Hotel Victory in Lake Erie, Ohio.

The menu of mock turtle, Philadelphia capon, Roman punch, and Petits Fours is fairly standard. The after-dinner speaking program, on the other hand, is anything but short, featuring such riveting discussions such as “Friendship among stenographers” by Dr. Rudolf Tombo of New York, and "Who are these stenographers?" by W.H. Macfeat of Columbia, South Carolina.

Important note to menu transcribers!

While these menus contain a wealth of information beyond the food (musicians, artists, popular songs of the time, organizations that no longer exist today), our goal (for now!) is to capture the food and dishes served at these events and not to worry about capturing every name, toast, speech, or Shakespearean quote, regardless of how interesting they may be (and they are!).

So as you transcribe pickles, potato croquettes, Delmonico potatoes, and sherbet, feel free to explore the social, literary, and professional worlds inhabited by these groups and organizations ... just don’t, as it were, "make a note" of them.

The Queen B: Miss Buttolph and Her Menus

Rebecca Federman, Collections Strategy, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 08:05:44 -0400

If you've transcribed even one menu, you've likely seen her stamp. A blue oval bearing her name, "Buttolph Collection", as graceful as a branding iron over asparagus, Russian caviar, or Boston baked beans.

Miss Frank E. Buttolph stamped nearly every menu she collected for the New York Public Library, twenty-three years worth, amounting to roughly 25,000 menus under her tenure alone.

But who was Miss Buttolph and why did she collect menus?

Neither question is easy to answer. We know from records that she was about fifty when she began her menu project, she was educated (she translated Tasso), and she was an avid collector of postcards with lighthouses.

Her most notable collection, her menu collection, began on January 1, 1900, with lunch. In a letter dated February 14, 1900 she writes:

"On New Year's Day I stopped in the Columbia Restaurant for lunch and thought it might be interesting to file a bill of fare at the library. A week later the thought occured, why not preserve others? As a result 930 have passed through my fingers to the Astor Library."

By August, Miss Buttolph was taking out ads in hotel and restaurant trade journals soliciting menus from their readership. This ad from Hotel Monthly (August, 1900) stresses the physical condition of the menus, or cards:

"It is of the highest importance the cards should be well wrapped and then placed between stiff card-board of a larger size, else they are sure to be soiled and broken in the mail, which condition renders them worthless. One beauty of this collection is, nearly all of the 3,600 cards [in the collection] are perfect, but I have had had to fight harder then Gen. Otis did in the Philippines to keep my standard in position. When it has to be lowered I shall discontinue the work."

The full ad is reproduced below:

Miss Buttolph's colorful personality, which is suggested in the ad, was both the reason for her success and the cause of her downfall. Her diligence in hunting down menus (writing to restaurants, putting up advertisements, and speaking to the press), and her commitment to high quality (she did not hesitate to send menus back if they did not meet her standards) insured that the Library's collection was both comprehensive and pristine.

However, even though she was never an employee of the Library, Miss Buttolph's idiosyncricies and negative behavior ("Is this museum maintained by the city to afford whistling space for the cleaners, instead of for students?) upset many on staff and in the Library administration who felt that her behavior was too disruptive ("[Miss Buttolph] is contantly complaining about something and when she gets started, it is almost impossible to get rid of her.")

Miss Buttolph was dismissed from NYPL in 1923. She died of pneumonia at Bellevue Hospital the following year, on February 27, 1924.

* * *

Despite her tumultuous relationship with the Library, her committment to her collection never wavered. In one of her last letters to the administration, she writes:

"For many years my library work has been the only thing I had to live for. It was my heart, my soul, my life. Always before me was the vision of students of history, who would say 'thank you' to my name and memory...."

Thank you, Miss Buttolph. Your incredible stamp continues to be felt, indeed.

Continue transcribing her collection on What's on the Menu?

New Feature! Unlock Menus to Continue Editing

Ben Vershbow, Manager, NYPL Labs — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 08:43:34 -0400

We've gotten a number of questions over the past week of What's on the Menu? about menus marked as "done." Do we really mean done? As in finished, vetted, archived for posterity? Fear not, we've cleared up this confusion with some new language. What we really meant to say was "under review."

On several occasions, a volunteer e-mailed us saying they'd spotted errors, or missing dishes, on menus marked as complete. I happily re-opened the menus in question (a facility only open to site administrators) and invited them to continue their work. After doing this a few times ad hoc, we decided to just add this as a feature.

Now, for any menu you find that's under review, you can click the little lock icon to its left to re-open it for further editing, correcting or transcribing. So if you are feel like donning your proofreader's glasses, we invite you to dive into the menus formerly known as finished to hunt out typos and problematic transcriptions (as ameliorated by these helpful tips), or to insert decimal points in the price fields to bring the cost of living and dining down to appropriate circa 1900 levels (as required, say, in this menu), or other tidying and correcting tasks not yet anticipated. Don't forget to re-submit the menu for review (via the button below the dishes list, left sidebar) when you're "done"!

And then what?

As is often the case in libraries, and on the always-evolving web, the work is never completely and totally done. For the menus, finishing transcription is in fact just the beginning of a long and only partially mapped out journey of data cleanup and rectification — not to mention subsequent tasks we may open up, such as the identification of sections (appetizers, desserts), categorization (breakfast menu, dinner menu), and other things still TBD.

Our philosophy all along has been to launch the project as openly and simply as possible, build a big data pile, and then to start finding solutions for navigating and improving the data. Any brave souls who want to jump in now to start polishing and tweaking are more than welcome! Please report back any common issues that you find (in the comments field below or via e-mail at menus@nypl.org).

We're also racing to post a detailed Help page, much of it informed by valuable user feedback, and soon, we expect, by the forthcoming insights of menu unlockers as well. The key is in your hands!

Go to What's on the Menu?

Tricky Menu Tips: Ditto Marks, Prices, and More

Rebecca Federman, Collections Strategy, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 10:42:16 -0400

Wow. We're sitting here with our mouths agape, simply overwhelmed --and thrilled! -- by the response to What's on the Menu? We knew you guys liked food, but holy (broiled) mackerel!

We launched WOTM very quietly, just three days ago, and, as of this typing, we have over 22K dishes transcribed! And it's evident, from the emails and tweets we've been receiving, that we have some very enthusiastic participants out there. Thank you!

But as you may have noticed, each menu is very different. Each has its quirks and idiosyncricies. Some have clear prices, some don't have any. Some have odd language, some are very straightforward. Some use ditto marks to convey the same dish, others repeat, repeat, repeat.

The following are some tips to think about while transcribing that I hope will clear up confusion, but please send us more questions as they come, either in the comments section of this post, to our menus@nypl.org community hotline, or through the Twitterverse @nypl_menus. Your questions and comments help us build a better and more robust site! We may add to this post over time, and all of it will serve as a draft for a more robust Help section on the menus site, coming soon. Meantime, here's some advice on navigating some of the more common snags.

Is a menu totally finished if it reads "done"?

Not quite. Every menu will go through a vetting process, where we will clean up any mixed-up prices, misspellings, etc. If it reads "done" it goes into a queue so that a NYPL staff member can review it. We haven't begun that review in earnest yet, but we're taking careful notes during this experimental first phase. Who knows, we may even re-open some of the menus at a later time for second-pass cleanup. Based on feedback, we're considering adjusting the status language to something like "locked for review." That may clear up the confusion.

Making sense of cents

Believe it or not, a sirloin steak can cost as little as 25 cents. Crazy, I know. But some menus also include pricier items, such as a $2.50 Terrapin, Maryland. Therefore, we've defaulted the currency to dollars (if the menu is from the U.S.) and we're asking everyone to adjust accordingly. If a steak is 25 cents, please mark as .25 Obviously if you mess up (or see someone else mess up) it will be cleaned up later, but it always helps us to add that little decimal point.

What's the deal with the ditto?

Have you transcribed any bills of fare from a coffee shop or oyster bar? If so, you've probably enountered menus with ditto marks (") as in:

Eggs, Fried

", Poached

", Soft-Boiled

When transcribing a menu and coming across the ditto (sometimes the menu will read "do", too), it helps to think of each dish as a discrete item which will be added to a huge database in which one can pull up a specific dish, across all menus. Therefore, it's enormously helpful to have Eggs, Poached reflected instead ", Poached. So, please don't use the ditto. Instead, please retype the original food offering in-full. But again, no sweat, we'll be cleaning up as we go, too.

Halving it all

Like the ditto mark, when coming across a dish that advertises a half chicken, or something prepared two ways, make two discrete entries. So instead of entering "chicken, half chicken", please enter the chicken twice, as in: "chicken" and "half chicken." That also goes for menu options on the same line. So, "oatmeal or hominy" should read "oatmeal" and "hominy."

When in dish doubt, don't leave it out!

Still not sure? Email us! menus@nypl.org

Go to What's on the Menu?

Doin' the Dishes!

Rebecca Federman, Collections Strategy, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 11:33:26 -0400

Saratoga Chips. Corned Beef Hash. Large Pot of Oolong Tea.

Okay, so they’re not included in the works of Shakespeare (as far as I know), but that doesn’t mean these dishes aren't of value to researchers and scholars and the generally curious who read menus in order to learn more about the food served and consumed in restaurants throughout history.

But until now this kind of information (the food!) was difficult - if not impossible - to search in our digitized menu collection.

Yes, you can search “oyster”, but you’ll get “Oyster Bay” instead of saddlerocks, or “Shanley Bros. Oyster House” instead of blue points. In other words you get the location and restaurant name, but not the very content (the food!) of the menu.

So we’ve built a website where you can tell us “What’s on the Menu?” and help create what we like to call a “database of dishes.” From your transcriptions, I hope we can learn about the foods of the last century to see what these historic menus can teach us about the culinary landscape today. Here are some items I’m excited to track over the next few months:

Tutti-frutti
Rise and fall of oysters
Vichy water
Battle Creek Sanitarium dishes
Moselle wine

And this is just the beginning! We'll be following many more foods and wines from these unique primary sources of our dining history. So help us “do the dishes” and we can all reap the rewards.

Go to What's on the Menu? and jump in!