Libraries Around the World @ Most Unusual Menus
Featuring fur, space flight, and Abraham Lincoln.
In scholarly
circles, menus are called “ephemera,” along with sheet music, posters, and
pamphlets. That is, they are paper with a transient purpose: printed to
advertise, to sell, or to inform about an issue or upcoming event. As the term
suggests, ephemera was never meant to last, and unbound paper is obligingly
impermanent.
The history of the menu isn’t all that long, and its
origins are murky. Menus were needed once restaurants became gathering places
that served a variety of foods, starting in 18th-century Paris. Later banquets
often provided printed menus as souvenirs for attendees, who could take a
soup-spattered piece of paper home to dream about delicacies past. Today,
nearly every restaurant has a menu, and some even let you take one home.
Not many libraries have menus collections, but they are
still a vital part of the historical record that reveals tastes, trends, and
even local environmental conditions. Menu collections are often passion
projects, gathered by enthusiasts over a lifetime. Perhaps the most famous examples
are Frank M. Buttolph, who
collected 25,000 menus that eventually ended up at the New York Public Library,
or Louis Szathmary, a chef whose collection is split between two universities
and ranges from Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural ball to a space-age feast. A
quick tour through menu collections from around the world reveals a wide range
of interesting or unusual holdings, from the elegant to the esoteric to the
downright furry.
Regards
Prof. Pralhad Jadhav
Master of Library &
Information Science (NET Qualified)
Senior Manager @ Knowledge
Repository
Khaitan & Co
Twitter Handle | @Pralhad161978
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