Library keeps menu ‘order’

Food may be forbidden there, but the New York Public Library still has the best menus in town.

While most New Yorkers keep just a few dozen restaurant menus in a kitchen drawer, the library has more than 40,000 in its stacks, listing eats ranging from the 1843 fare at the Astor House to the 2010 offerings at Chipotle.

“It’s a record of what people actually ate,” said Rebecca Federman, the culinary collection’s librarian. “It began in 1900 and is now part of our rare-books division because it is such a unique, ephemeral collection.”

But since these menus, like most of the rare books, are not available for takeout, the library is working to digitize the collection and this spring will enlist volunteers’ help in transcribing each dish on the scanned pages so that the database can be indexed.

“With the public’s help, we’ll be able to generate an amazing, searchable database, where you can visualize neighborhood restaurants and prices of dishes over time,” said Ben Vershbow, the project’s digital producer.

For years, researchers have relished being able to look up that Queen Elizabeth was served green-turtle soup and Long Island striped bass at the Waldorf during her first visit to New York City in 1957.

Academics have also used the collection to study local fish populations throughout history or, for instance, to find out that the most popular Big Apple dishes at the turn of the century were oyster patties and macaroni with cream.

The collection, which is amassed through donations, includes early Chinese restaurants with more American fare than “chopstick dinners” and banquet menus for such events as Mark Twain’s 70th-birthday bash at Delmonico’s in 1905.

Some of the vintage menus in the archive are from city restaurants that are still up and running, such as Keens Steakhouse, on West 36th Street. A menu from 1955 (when Keen’s had an apostrophe) shows a burger selling there for a then-pricey $3 and a filet mignon for $4.95, compared to the current $16.50 and $49.