American food writer Clementine Paddleford has an archive of over 700 restaurant menus at Kansas State University. I photographed as many as I could in the short time I was there, and have divided them into several blogs starting with American restaurants. It was fun seeing classic American restaurants, many of them now closed forever. Clementine collected menus for many years wherever she traveled. Even though it would have been interesting to see all the actual menus, most had print that was too small, hard to read, or faded; or sometimes the menus were so huge and heavy, they were difficult to hold. The covers are beautiful and worthy to be framed. How I wish I could have seen them all! Someday…
Bonus! A recipe from Canlis.
If you can read French, here is Pagani’s menu.
A special menu for the opening night of Opera season!
I loved this one because you can see where Clem’s coffee dripped on the menu!
These Spice Association menus are from various years and locations across the country. It was an annual event, each time with a different theme. You will see where Clementine had some of the guests sign her menu at one of the events.
Coming up in the next blog will be menus from across the globe!
On the Boxman’s menu there is a reference to “Duncan Hines”! Had no idea that was a real person (LOL)
Great memorabilia!
Yes, Lisa – isn’t it funny how some of the familiar food names were real people, but some just completely made up in marketing meetings, like Betty Crocker. Duncan Hines was a salesman from Bowling Green, Kentucky who wrote about his eating adventures as he traveled. Clementine regarded Hines as an expert on cooking and eating and had great admiration for him. And as we all know, Duncan Hines sold his name to Proctor & Gamble and the rest is history!
These vintage restaurant menu covers look so fascinating. They also remind us of our cultural heritage.
The menu covers are like works of art. How I wish I could have taken photos of every single one, but there were hundreds of them! Clementine was a busy lady!