The Forgotten Menu
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Titanic Recipes

Recipes from the Titanic’s menus of April 14, 1912: first class’s salmon, duckling and punch romaine, and third class’s porridge, figs and gruel.

Two of the Titanic’s menu cards for Sunday, April 14, 1912, give a day’s food in first class and in third. The first-class dinner card offered salmon with mousseline sauce, roast duckling with apple sauce, punch romaine between the courses and peaches in Chartreuse jelly, the menu behind What Was the Last First-Class Dinner on the Titanic?

Third-class passengers were offered porridge and ham and eggs for breakfast, roast beef and plum pudding at dinner, stewed figs at tea and gruel at supper. A printed card is an offer, not a record of what was eaten, and What Did Third-Class Passengers Eat on the Titanic? reads it meal by meal. No recipe from the ship’s kitchens survives, so ours come from cookbooks of the same years, named on each page.

What Was the Last First-Class Dinner on the Titanic?

  • A whole roast duckling with golden-brown skin on an oval white platter beside its sage and onion stuffing, with apple sauce and gravy in white sauceboats and a silver carving knife and fork.
    Roast Duckling, Apple Sauce

    Meat & Poultry · 2 hr 40 min total

    Roast Duckling with Apple Sauce (1912) 

    Roast duckling with apple sauce, one of three meat dishes on one line of the Titanic’s first-class dinner card of April 14, 1912, cooked from Mrs. Beeton’s 1906 edition with sage and onion stuffing.

  • Pale, snowy punch romaine spooned into small stemmed glasses, with a strip of lemon zest on the cloth and a glass jug of rum behind.
    Punch Romaine

    Drinks, Punches & Ices · 5 hr 40 min total

    Punch à la Romaine (1912) 

    Punch à la romaine, the iced course of the Titanic’s first-class dinner on April 14, 1912: Escoffier’s soft wine and citrus ice with Italian meringue and rum, served in glasses.

  • A clear, pale gold jelly turned out of a fluted ring mold with peeled peach slices set through it, on a clear glass cake stand, with a cut wedge on a small white plate.
    Peaches in Chartreuse Jelly

    Desserts & Sweets · 9 hr 15 min total

    Peaches in Chartreuse Jelly (1912) 

    Peaches in Chartreuse jelly, a dessert from the Titanic’s first-class dinner of April 14, 1912, rebuilt from two of Agnes Marshall’s 1890 jellies: peach slices set in a clear, liqueur-scented jelly.

What Did Third-Class Passengers Eat on the Titanic?

  • Three plain white bowls of thick, nubbly oatmeal porridge on a pale wooden table, a thin ring of milk around the edge of each and a spoon in the middle bowl, with a small white jug of milk behind.
    Oatmeal Porridge & Milk

    Breakfast · 8 hr 35 min total

    Oatmeal Porridge (1906) 

    Oatmeal porridge with milk, the first dish at third-class breakfast on the Titanic on April 14, 1912: coarse oatmeal soaked overnight, from the 1906 Beeton.

  • 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.

  • Two white china cups of thin, smooth, pale cream oatmeal gruel on saucers, one on a linen napkin, with a small fine sieve holding the strained-out oatmeal on a plate beside them, on a white enamel table.
    Gruel

    Soups & Broths · 40 min total

    Oatmeal Gruel (1906) 

    Oatmeal gruel, the first item at Titanic third-class supper on April 14, 1912: fine oatmeal simmered in milk and water, then strained, from the 1906 Beeton.