From beef tongue to beef on weck, menus through the years trace our culinary history

BUFFALO, N.Y. – A sampling of what was on the menu in the 1800s, culled from menus collected by the Buffalo History Museum as a way to trace the city’s culinary and social history. Museum library director Cynthia Van Ness so far has assembled about 5,000 different Buffalo menus from the past to present day, and has put out a call for more.

Ocean Dining Hall and Oyster House, opened around 1872:

Dinner:

Roast mallard duck, 40 cents

Spring chicken, 40 cents

French olives (stuffed), 15 cents

Chow-chow relish, 10 cents

Breakfast and Tea:

Salt pork & liver, 50 cents

Pork chops, 60 cents

Porterhouse steak with oyster sauce, $1

Game:

Plover on toast, 60 cents

Woodcock on toast, 75 cents

Partridge, $1.25

Electoral Supper, Delavan House, 1848:

Mock turtle soup

Capons

Ducks, with olives

Boiled tongues, ornamented

Pigeons

Woodcock

Pastry:

Calves’ foot jelly

Queen’s Moss

Moses in the bulrushes