The Forgotten Menu
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Recipes

Dishes from history’s famous tables, from the old menus and cookbooks. Each one names its source and scales to the size of your table.

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25–36 of 213 recipes

  1. A shallow cream bowl of plump, dark brown stewed figs in a thin amber syrup, with a small jug of pale yellow custard sauce on a blue-striped napkin and a dessert spoon beside it.
    Stewed Figs & Rice

    Desserts & Sweets · 2 hr total

    Stewed Figs (1906) 

    Stewed figs, the sweet at Titanic third-class tea on April 14, 1912: dried figs stewed with sugar and lemon, with custard sauce from the 1906 Mrs. Beeton.

  6. Four small glass cups of soft, set ivory-white milk pudding with a matte surface, one with a spoon resting in it, beside a whole nutmeg and a few blades of mace.
    Arrow Root Blanc-Mange

    Desserts & Sweets · 3 hr 50 min total

    Arrowroot Blancmange (1837) 

    Eliza Leslie’s arrow root blanc-mange, Philadelphia, 1837: milk steeped with lemon, nutmeg and mace, strained, sweetened and set with arrowroot.

  7. Golden-brown pieces of sweetbread in a thick, pale-brown sauce with dark morels and whole peeled chestnuts, in a wide earthenware dish.
    Bruine ragout van zwezerikken

    Meat & Poultry · 7 hr 30 min total

    Brown Ragout of Sweetbreads (1769) 

    A brown ragout from a 1769 Amsterdam cookbook: veal sweetbreads floured, browned in butter and stewed with nutmeg, mace, morels and chestnuts, bound with egg.

  8. A deep green-glazed earthenware tureen of clear brown vegetable broth over soaked bread, with pale green lengths of braised celery laid across the top.
    Potages maigres de plusieurs façons

    Soups & Broths · 1 hr 40 min total

    Celery Soup Maigre (1771) 

    A meatless French soup of 1771: onion, carrots and parsnip browned in butter and boiled into broth, poured over bread, with celery cooked apart on top.

  9. Thick rounds of cucumber with dark green skins and thin rings of shallot in a little spiced brown vinegar, in a shallow cream stoneware bowl.
    To pickle Cucumbers in Slices

    Vegetables & Sides · 1 hr 45 min total

    Cucumbers in Slices (1769) 

    Elizabeth Raffald’s sliced cucumbers, 1769: salted and drained with shallots, then dressed in malt vinegar with ginger, horseradish and mace.