Last week during history class I learned about the importance of menus in the 19th century in NYC. The menus that I viewed were very long and had many standards for serving each course. Compared to menus today they were very detailed and long and dinner was a very complicated thing. Now a days menus for a dinner party are short and have few options for guest to choose from. Theres no directions to certain ways to serve the food.

Menus in the 19th century could have up to 12 courses with strict regulations. The menu my class received  was  12 courses and each course had to be served a certain way with specific drinks in-between them. There was a first course, soup course, fish course, entrees which were served in-between any of the courses, vegetable course, game or salad course, and a few different types of desert courses. This was a very in-depth menu with multiple choices. This shows how complicated the menus in the 19th century was and how these menus show the way the wealth lived. The wealthy had many servants and accessibility to many different foods. The types of foods on the menu shows the money they had and the foods they could afford.

Present day restaurant menus are less explanatory and are made to be more appealing to the costumer. Menus today at a restaurant explain the way the food is cooked with a short detailed synapses on what is in the dish. Still till this day the quality of the menu, the prices of the food, and the types of foods offered displays the status of the restaurant.