Vintage Menus Make Great Gifts

And here's the place to find them.

There is a perfect vintage menu for every person. And a perfect place to find them. The people behind Vintage Menu Art seek out great old menus from 1813 through the 1980s, clean them up and reproduce them on high quality paper.

But beware this website; if you’re like me you’ll end up spending hours looking through the various offerings and reading the interesting information about each restaurant.

Most are beautiful, and each one offers insight into another era. Consider, for example, this one from 100 years ago.

According to the site, “Twelve million immigrants passed through Ellis Island in New York during a sixty-year period from 1892 until 1954, helping to make the United States the culturally diverse country it is today. Anxious newcomers, who had endured transatlantic voyages by sea in “steerage” where they lacked adequate light and ventilation, were processed at Ellis Island, the country’s largest immigration receiving station. This menu shows the nutritious daily meals that were served to immigrants in detention quarters as they waited to be dealt with by the authorities. For many of these immigrants, who had little to eat in their home countries, it was the first time they had seen white bread and butter and had generous quantities of milk to drink.

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