With Thanksgiving on the horizon, many Northwestern students will inevitably find themselves experiencing the culinary abyss that comes with air travel.
Though travelers today may rejoice over a $3 package of over-salted airline peanuts, the NU Transportation Library’s new collection of vintage airplane menus launched last week reminds hungry passengers of more luxurious dining at 30,000 ft.
The collection includes more than 350 menus from 1929 to the present, and was recently digitized and organized into a searchable online database. The collection began in 1997 when George M. Foster Jr., a Weinberg ’35 alumnus and University of California – Berkeley professor, donated his extensive collection of airline menus to the library.
“He’s a very important anthropologist,” said Paul Burley, NU’s technical services librarian. “He traveled throughout the world pursuing his anthropological studies, and kept all of the menus.”
According to Burley, the meticulous organization of the menus into an accessible, online format was the cornerstone of the project.
“There are no digitized collections in an online format like ours,” Burley said. “In that respect, the collection is incredibly unique.”
Instead of the miniscule trail mix bags given to today’s passengers, holiday travelers on one Pan American World Airways flight received a full Thanksgiving dinner in economy class, complete with roast turkey, mashed potatoes and dessert.
“First class was truly luxurious,” Burley added.
Because Foster was an “airline buff” with research projects all over the world, the collection includes Italian, South African, Japanese and other menus from 54 transportation companies.
One of Burley’s favorite pieces, a British airline menu from 1991, describes a nine-course meal available to first-class passengers.
“(The menu) really shows the culinary history and changing economics of transportation,” he said.
Burley said recent additions to the archive include cruise ship and railroad menus, and added that donations for the collection continue to pour in.
“The collection is international,” said Burley. “It is continuing to grow through donations from library staff and the public who have heard about it.”
According to Burley, Foster’s donation is valuable because of the sheer volume of menus as well as the way the professor wrote personal notes on each menu. Handwritten annotations with his “blunt opinion of the dishes served” adorn each menu, Burley said. He said Foster’s annotations have also added to the research value of each piece.
“He made meticulous notes about the dates and routes of the flights, and because of this, we can date menus we wouldn’t normally have been able to,” Burley explained.
The compilation shows the evolution of high altitude fare and is also an exhibition of “commercial art,” Burley said.
Each menu features cover art such as photographs or watercolors in addition to descriptions of their often decadent offerings.
“The research value is in the art on the menu, the history of air travel, the sociology of the menus and the culinary aspects,” Burley said.
Students can view the collection online at www.library.northwestern.edu/transportation, though students with “specific research purposes” can make an appointment to view the physical collection on the 5th floor of the library, Burley said.
Reach Sara Peck at [email protected]
