The George Washington

In my collection of ocean liner memorabilia, I have eight menus from a transatlantic crossing on the SS George Washington from 1922. Dated from August 19-27th, they are a fascinating look at fine dining almost one hundred years ago. It was a smaller vessel, much smaller than its running mate the SS Leviathan, yet passengers still enjoyed a variety of food both familiar and unknown to me.

Yet too, there are other things many people would shy away from now like smoked ox tongue or pig knuckles with sauerkraut. That said, I’m particularly charmed by “rollmops” which suggests to me that bread rolls were used to mop up excess sauce leftover from an entrée.

Looking over them, I would enjoy trying to replicate a dish or two if not attempt an entire meal but certain things would be near impossible to recreate. While people today will recognize porterhouse steak with French fried potatoes and green peas, some of this haute cuisine like jelly macedoine with vanilla sauce required special molds that are near impossible to find intact nowadays.

These menus would have been printed onboard, as can be surmised by smudged ink on the first one, and were changed up for every meal. However, it appears that they were not always correct as whichever passenger had these cards scratched out an entry for “eel in jelly” and wrote-in “anchovies” below.

If you like this blog post, you might enjoy this previous update!