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Interesting, these really old menus would not look too out of place at a restaurant today.
Unfortunately in Europe printed menus almost entirely disappeared after COVID. Before, leather-clad, elegant, printed menus were commonplace, but nowadays every place just has a QR code.
Anyone interested in this might also like the tidbit that in Germany, they used to, and still count beer consumed as pencil strikes on the beer paper mat. Altering the number by the guest is legally considered forgery and the disappearance of the beer mat is also punishable by law. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bierdeckel#Urkundencharakter (in German, English wiki doesn't have this info)
They had to cement the dining area because people used to bury the plates in the beach sand.
Anyone interested in this might also like the tidbit that in Germany, they used to, and still count beer consumed as pencil strikes on the beer paper mat. Altering the number by the guest is legally considered forgery and the disappearance of the beer mat is also punishable by law. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bierdeckel#Urkundencharakter (in German, English wiki doesn't have this info)
In Málaga, Andalusia, Spain there is churinguito (a seafood place next to the beach) that doesn't really have a menu after 9pm. Waiters just walk in the dining area with a plate in hand and yell the name of the fish/seafood for peoole to ask for it. Each fish has a different kind of plate with a different price. When you ask for the bill, they just do the sum according to the plates left on the table. They had to cem…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In some breweries and countries, the beer mat placed on the glass signals to the waiter that the guest does not want to drink any more beer. Interesting. I’ve always seen this as a signal that a person was stepping away, but coming back. The person would cover it while going to the bathroom, in part so it isn’t as trivial for someone to slip something in their drink. Implying that they intend to keep drinking it on…
All over Germany, and it's been around much much longer than the fear of having something slipped in your drink.
Interesting how little some things have changed. The prices, on the other hand, seem quite cheap--even after converting to 2026 dollars.
Interesting, these really old menus would not look too out of place at a restaurant today.
And the other way around too - it sounds like you could have had a very similar dining experience as today. It always amazes me how very little difference there is between past people's lifestyles and ours. I know this on a factual level, but being presented with a tiny peek into the past like this is always very humbling to me.
So looking back we see the similarities but are often blind to the differences.