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Diplomats of dining

Book pays tribute to classic American menus

Web posted on: Wednesday, June 03, 1998 4:38:32 PM EDT

By CNN Interactive Writer
Jamie Allen

ATLANTA (CNN) -- Ever meet someone who hates restaurant menus? If you have, they might be alone in that aversion.

Menus have traditionally had the best role in the theater that is dining. They are placed in your hands when you're excited for a good meal. They make your mouth water with their enticing sales pitch. They even give you something to look at if there's a lapse in the pre-dining conversation. And they're gone before the meal arrives, leaving you to blame the cook if the food isn't all it was billed to be.

Menus are the diplomats of dining. And now there's a book dedicated to their history and art.

A heaping plate of menus

"May I Take Your Order: American Menu Design 1920-1960" by Jim Heimann is a eclectic collection of menus from across the country, and the stories behind them.

The book, which would draw attention on any coffee table, takes readers from the first printed menu in the United States (Delmonico's restaurant in New York, 1834) through the 1930s -- the "golden age of menu design" -- to the age of atoms, drive-ins, fast-food and fads.

Along the way, menu fanatics are treated to dozens of classic restaurant lists, from "celebrity-inspired" and "foreign" to "transportation" and "highway" bills of fare.

The Elvis menus

I'll have one King

Many entries reflects the times. For instance, in the section on the 1930s, Art-Deco reigns, as well as scantily clad damsels, revealing the era's attempt at sophisticated elegance.

One menu cover includes the sales pitch: "Try Yeast Foam Malted Milk."

Another menu from the early 1970s (the book ventures beyond its titled borders) screams with the King -- Elvis Presley, that is. The menu was part of a promotion by a Las Vegas hotel.

Take a look at some classic menu designs from "May I Take Your Order?"

Related stories:

• Click here for more book news

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