“Now, the supreme moment, the Christmas pudding was brought in, in state!”*…
Central Hotel, Charlotte, North Carolina, 1900
What did people eat in America 100 years ago during the holiday season? Menus catalogued by the New York Public Library from Christmas dinners served in the early part of the 20th century offer an interesting look at our ancestors’ dining habits. The menus come from a survey of restaurants, hotels, and even an Army fort’s Christmas dinner service…
Just in time to aid in planning this year’s holiday meal: more (and larger) menus from an age gone by.
* Agatha Christie, “The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding”
###
As we bake the bread to break, we might recall that it was on this date in 1843 that Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol— a novella he’d written over the prior six weeks– was formally published; it had been released to book stores and the public two days later. The first run of 6,000 copies sold out by Christmas Eve, and the book continued to sell well through twenty-four editions in its original form.
Cover of the first edition