Period Breakfast menu

[Belfoured]

My impression is that in the 19th century they kept beef, mutton, etc on the hoof until it was slaughtered to be used immediately. The only preservative for meat was salt. Ice was generally used to keep drinks cold - not to preserve meat. Farmers brought livestock into the cities every day. I welcome corrections to that belief if I am wrong about that.

That's my vague impression, as well, but that just raises the question about where this place was located and how all those options were available for breakfast

 

[JerryD]

Not for me. Back in my younger and wilder days, I went to my girlfriend at the time's apartment as hungry as I could be because I had skipped breakfast. I went into the kitchen and saw a box of cherry Pop Tarts. Then I needed something to wash them down with so I looked in the refrigerator and only saw a bottle of White Zinfandel in there. I got a glass of the White Zinfandel and a couple of packs of the pop tarts and preceded to eat breakfast. I was in the bathroom regurgitating within about thirty minutes. My girlfriend got a good laugh out of that.

Back in my wilder days we often partied til the wee hours, then went to Lums in College Park for breakfast cause they served beer at breakfast!

Kill me now if I had to do that today.

 

[JerryD]

That's my vague impression, as well, but that just raises the question about where this place was located and how all those options were available for breakfast

I thought salt was what they used to preserve meat more than ice, but I may be way off on that. I know salt was considered a strategic resource for preservation purposes and the US frequently sent raids to destroy CSA salt making industries.

 

[JeffBrooks]

I thought salt was what they used to preserve meat more than ice, but I may be way off on that. I know salt was considered a strategic resource for preservation purposes and the US frequently sent raids to destroy CSA salt making industries.

Well, there's obviously a big difference between fine dining at an upscale restaurant and eating food in the army camp. I don't think the boys in the camp were drinking fine Bordeaux, either.

 

[Booklady]

Back in my wilder days we often partied til the wee hours, then went to Lums in College Park for breakfast cause they served beer at breakfast!

Kill me now if I had to do that today.

I would have wine with breakfast after working the Friday or Saturday midnight shift at Howard Johnson's.
Long, long ago.

 

[Belfoured]

I thought salt was what they used to preserve meat more than ice, but I may be way off on that. I know salt was considered a strategic resource for preservation purposes and the US frequently sent raids to destroy CSA salt making industries.

I agree, but usually they would refer to "salted" - as in beef, pork, etc. Guys in the ranks didn't care for it much, so it's hard to imagine making people fork over dinero for it. But this is well outside my "wheel house" ...

 

[7thWisconsin]

That's a great find. Items like this shed light on daily life in that era. Which raises the interesting question about all the various kinds of meat available. Since they didn't have herds/flocks in the back yard, they must have had some ice arrangements?

Ham and bacon are cured meats, but the rest would have been on the hoof, at least as far as the butcher shop. Then it would be slaughter, dressed and delivered. Until the middle of the 20th century, people were still buying poultry that arrived at the butcher alive and wasn´t dressed until ordered.
You could keep food items cool in a spring house. I don´t think it would have been used for meats, rather for dairy and vegetables. Ice was cut during the winter and kept in ice houses. The ice man would bring a block around to put in your icebox. Back in the early 20th century, some of my ancestors were icemen. My wife´s family used to cut ice from Seneca Lake during the winter, with the goal of having ice until the 4th of July.

 

[John Winn]

Some of it makes the rattlesnake I ate working at a ranch one summer look like the better breakfast option. (In all honesty it was pretty good and I had it a few times). Choosing between that and "tripe" in its various forms, I think I'd go with the rattler every time.

Ah yes - rattlesnake. I've eaten it a number of times but not in recent decades. And when in Nevada I ate Rocky Mountain oysters several times (you couldn't really politely refuse or get any respect if you didn't eat them). None of the chefs drank wine (that was for Basque sheep herders) so we drank beer, a few times actually for breakfast. Reminded me of the Doors tune "I woke up this mornin' and I got myself a beer." Maybe the only thing hippies and real cowboys had in common.

 

[Belfoured]

Ah yes - rattlesnake. I've eaten it a number of times but not in recent decades. And when in Nevada I ate Rocky Mountain oysters several times (you couldn't really politely refuse or get any respect if you didn't eat them). None of the chefs drank wine (that was for Basque sheep herders) so we drank beer, a few times actually for breakfast. Reminded me of the Doors tune "I woke up this mornin' and I got myself a beer." Maybe the only thing hippies and real cowboys had in common.

As we know, "oysters" are a staple of some eateries in the region and there's more than one story of somebody thinking they're ordering mollusks from the ocean and then heading out the door after finding out what they just swallowed.

I actually acquired a taste for rattler. The ranch cook sauteed it (a word he would never use) with some beer, peppers, and a spice I forget. One of our jobs was to kill the [ ] after they came own near the corrals, got overheated, and would hole up in the nearest shade. So it was sort of like bringing home the Elk you just took and hauled out - very "sort of" ....

 

[John Winn]

As we know, "oysters" are a staple of some eateries in the region and there's more than one story of somebody thinking they're ordering mollusks from the ocean and then heading out the door after finding out what they just swallowed.

I actually acquired a taste for rattler. The ranch cook sauteed it (a word he would never use) with some beer, peppers, and a spice I forget. One of our jobs was to kill the [ ] after they came own near the corrals, got overheated, and would hole up in the nearest shade. So it was sort of like bringing home the Elk you just took and hauled out - very "sort of" ....

I had the most exposure to rattlers when I lived in NE Nevada but those are comparatively small so you'd not get much of a meal out of just one. I never knew anybody to eat one there. The ones I ate were in Montana and, once, in Oregon when I shot one on a rafting trip (it was crawling around in one of the heavily-used take-outs/campgrounds). We had some butter and a few other things (for fish eating) so were able to make a good go at it. My first wife wouldn't eat any though (hated snakes). The Montana ones were pretty good sized (i.e. bigger than the Oregon one) and were shot by a rancher I knew. I thought it a novel western experience, I at the time being a maybe two-year eastern transplant.

I knew the rancher because his son and I worked two summers for the USFS cruising timber sales and I got out to the ranch a number of times. I'd not heard from that guy in forty years or more but recently did make contact (long story). He inherited the family ranch but done got old and sold it and retired to Tucson where he now plays golf. Never knew any golf-playing cowboys but it's a new day now I guess.

 

[13 IL Cav & 64 GA Inf]

Welcome to Barnun's Hotel, Baltimore, 1863. Breakfast is served. I'll take some cold tongue, stewed tripe, and oh..., yes, some stale bread. Yummy.

View attachment 556501

Possibly the BEST post on this thread! Way to go @JerryD.

 

[Belfoured]

Ham and bacon are cured meats, but the rest would have been on the hoof, at least as far as the butcher shop. Then it would be slaughter, dressed and delivered. Until the middle of the 20th century, people were still buying poultry that arrived at the butcher alive and wasn´t dressed until ordered.
You could keep food items cool in a spring house. I don´t think it would have been used for meats, rather for dairy and vegetables. Ice was cut during the winter and kept in ice houses. The ice man would bring a block around to put in your icebox. Back in the early 20th century, some of my ancestors were icemen. My wife´s family used to cut ice from Seneca Lake during the winter, with the goal of having ice until the 4th of July.

Yeah - I was more focused on the non-cured/non-poultry meats. Still seems like there had to be some holding time between slaughter and the customer ordering/getting.

I had the most exposure to rattlers when I lived in NE Nevada but those are comparatively small so you'd not get much of a meal out of just one. I never knew anybody to eat one there. The ones I ate were in Montana and, once, in Oregon when I shot one on a rafting trip (it was crawling around in one of the heavily-used take-outs/campgrounds). We had some butter and a few other things (for fish eating) so were able to make a good go at it. My first wife wouldn't eat any though (hated snakes). The Montana ones were pretty good sized (i.e. bigger than the Oregon one) and were shot by a rancher I knew. I thought it a novel western experience, I at the time being a maybe two-year eastern transplant.

I knew the rancher because his son and I worked two summers for the USFS cruising timber sales and I got out to the ranch a number of times. I'd not heard from that guy in forty years or more but recently did make contact (long story). He inherited the family ranch but done got old and sold it and retired to Tucson where he now plays golf. Never knew any golf-playing cowboys but it's a new day now I guess.

Try watching a roundup where they're using UTV's "This ain't your Granddaddy's Ranch"

 

[SWS]

Was stale bread for the dyspeptics?

 

[Reconstructed Rebel]

I always thought stale bread was to be used for toast or otherwise hidden in recipes like homemade croutons. Waste not, want not…

 

[JerryD]

An account about breakfast in Barnum's:

Charles Weld (1813-1869) was an Englishman who visited the huge hotel in 1855 and while he could not secure a room was able to procure a bath and breakfast.

"Barnum's Hotel, for which we were charged a dollar each. Here, however, we plunged into even greater chaos. The large hall of this large hotel was thronged by hundreds of people, striving to inscribe their names in the bar-book. Finding that every room in the house was already occupied, I took no part in this struggle; preferring rather the luxury of a warm bath, which was particularly refreshing after the wretched night I had spent. This, and an excellent breakfast, to which I sat down in company with about 500 persons, gave me renewed strength for sight-seeing duties.

The resources of American hotels are really wonderful. Sleeping accommodation has its limits, but the wealth of the culinary department seems to be boundless. No accession of visitors, be they ever so numerous, exhausts the supplies.

Weld, Charles Richard. A Vacation Tour in the United States and Canada London: 1855.

 

[captaindrew]

Reminded me of the Doors tune "I woke up this mornin' and I got myself a beer."

Or one from Johnny Cash (written by Chris Christoferson) Sunday Morning Coming Down "The beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad so I had one more for dessert" yup hippies and cowboys have some things in common

 

[Belfoured]

An account about breakfast in Barnum's:

Charles Weld (1813-1869) was an Englishman who visited the huge hotel in 1855 and while he could not secure a room was able to procure a bath and breakfast.

"Barnum's Hotel, for which we were charged a dollar each. Here, however, we plunged into even greater chaos. The large hall of this large hotel was thronged by hundreds of people, striving to inscribe their names in the bar-book. Finding that every room in the house was already occupied, I took no part in this struggle; preferring rather the luxury of a warm bath, which was particularly refreshing after the wretched night I had spent. This, and an excellent breakfast, to which I sat down in company with about 500 persons, gave me renewed strength for sight-seeing duties.

The resources of American hotels are really wonderful. Sleeping accommodation has its limits, but the wealth of the culinary department seems to be boundless. No accession of visitors, be they ever so numerous, exhausts the supplies.

Weld, Charles Richard. A Vacation Tour in the United States and Canada London: 1855.

Wow - what were the dimensions of this place? 500 for breakfast ...

 

[RebelWeber]

Welcome to Barnun's Hotel, Baltimore, 1863. Breakfast is served. I'll take some cold tongue, stewed tripe, and oh..., yes, some stale bread. Yummy.

View attachment 556501

I'll take a order of ham and eggs, fried potatoes and a spot of tea ... That should hold me till Washington!

 

[13 IL Cav & 64 GA Inf]

Ham and bacon are cured meats, but the rest would have been on the hoof, at least as far as the butcher shop. Then it would be slaughter, dressed and delivered. Until the middle of the 20th century, people were still buying poultry that arrived at the butcher alive and wasn´t dressed until ordered.
You could keep food items cool in a spring house. I don´t think it would have been used for meats, rather for dairy and vegetables. Ice was cut during the winter and kept in ice houses. The ice man would bring a block around to put in your icebox. Back in the early 20th century, some of my ancestors were icemen. My wife´s family used to cut ice from Seneca Lake during the winter, with the goal of having ice until the 4th of July.

I still remember the ice house down the street from my great grandparents' house in the early 1950's. They didn't trust the newer small electric refrigerator and still had an icebox into the late 1950's. I remember the two pronged tool that was used to pick up the blocks of ice.