Thanksgiving Punch

November 24, 1909, Menasha Record

Before we leave Thanksgiving totally behind, let's peruse the menu at the Hotel Menasha, 1909-style, for the feast that day.  I must say, there ARE some things on this menu that I do not recognize at all, but it does remind me of those "Gilded Age" menus I'd seen in past reviews of the 1880s and 1890s in Boss Tweed-era New York, steamship round of beef and that sort of thing, feeding the robber barons and big bellied financiers with their pocket watch chains pulled snugly across their waistcoats.  I always found it humorous to dictate, down to the nth degree, those little things like mints and mixed nuts that one just assumes would be there but were felt important enough to be included by the maitre d.  One would not hinge his or her dining decision on such mundane details, but it mattered to some people evidently.  By the way, "Saratoga chips" are better known today as potato chips, a one-time specialty that we just take for granted now..