Would You Like Meat With That?

When we took Cynthia's daughter, M, to the Old Town Cafe for breakfast this morning, C spotted this framed old menu hanging on the wall. It's a good example of a mundane object that can teach us quite a bit of history.

The effects of inflation will be obvious to anyone, but this menu also illustrates significant changes in the American diet. It's primarily a no-nonsense meat-centric menu. Vegetables get scant attention, there's no mention of salads, and vegetarians don't get much consideration.

The inclusion of heart and liver on the menu might not seem unusual to Europeans, but most Americans today are horrified by the thought of eating any organ meat.

The lower part of the menu that I cropped listed five more expensive offerings: fried oysters, cube steak, rib steak, pork chops, and T-bone steak -- all with French Fried Potatoes.

The phrase "heart attack on a plate" comes to mind.