The American Menu

1943-1945  The U.S. military presence in India expanded rapidly during World War II, growing from virtually zero in early 1942 to over 160,0...

1881-2023 Everybody loves Italian food. Yet the idea of a single Italian cuisine took time to coalesce, if it ever really has. Even after It...

New York City,  1924-1954    In 1913, Elias and Joseph Kirdahy opened the Kirdahy Brothers’ Oriental Restaurant on Washington Street in Lowe...

Los Angeles, 1941 Schwab’s Pharmacy holds a lasting place in America’s cultural memory, especially in Hollywood history. A surviving menu fr...

Los Angeles,  1971  The  front  of this large menu from 1971 features the word “om” in Devanagari script. Underneath is a description of thi...

New York City,  1948  The Dairy Restaurant is a fascinating new book by writer and cartoonist Ben Katchor. Jewish dairy restaurants attract...

Kunming, China Christmas 1943  The eastern end of the Himalayan Mountains was called “The Hump” by pilots who flew transport aircraft b...

New York City, 1949  The Limited Editions Club awarded its fifth gold metal at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in November 1949. According t...

Marin County, California 1928-1940 One of the most intriguing things about old menus from San Quentin State Prison is that they were...

Long Beach, ca. 1941  This elegant, scallop-edged menu comes from the fabled Sky Room in the old Hilton Hotel in Long Beach, Californi...

Thanksgiving,  1943  Norman Rockwell painted this iconic scene in 1943. Depicting a family dinner on Thanksgiving, the painting “Freed...

When I look at this menu from the late 1960s, I can’t help but imagine what it would’ve been like if the English writer Virginia Woolf, and...

S.S. Liberté,  1959  The great luxury liners were never more glamorous and exciting than on the day of departure. As passengers arrive...

Havana,  ca. 1955  During a recent visit to Havana, I hailed a taxi (a 1958 Ford) and rumbled over to the Plaza de Armas to look for s...

Beverly Hills,  1948  Sitting Pretty (1948) With his attitude of thinly-veiled disdain, actor Clifton Webb was “a blast of asexual s...

The White House 1961-1963   Flashbulbs popped on the night of the Pre-Inaugural Gala as Jacqueline Kennedy emerged from a townhouse in...

1939-41  In 1939, President Franklin Roosevelt declared that Thanksgiving would be held on the third Thursday of November, instead of th...

American Airlines 1946 Restaurant critic Bryan Miller once observed, “The quality of food is in inverse proportion to a dining room’s a...

San Francisco,  1940 Working from drawings of ordinary restaurants in New York, Edward Hopper painted Tables for Ladies in his stud...

New York City,  1885-1986 The 125th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty in 2011 was celebrated with the issuance of a “forever” stamp...