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New York Public Library

1 stories

5,000 restaurant menus from 1880-1920, and the ham sandwich cost 25 cents (pudding.cool)

A data-story walks through five thousand American menus from 1880 to 1920, digitized from the NYPL's Buttolph Collection and labeled dish-by-dish by volunteers at menus.nypl.org.

Readers noticed what changed and what didn't: oysters and clams lead the page, 'green turtle soup' turned out to be literal turtle meat, and celery sat as a delicacy because before refrigeration it barely survived the trip to the city.