The Great Northern archive at the Minnesota History Center has a huge number of different menus from the mid-1920s, the period I searched through to find information about the historical expeditions of 1925 and 1926. Most of the menus in the files I found were used for tours or special events. Some were clearly also used on the Oriental Limited, others were generic tour menus with a pretty cover with a blank spot to be filled in for each tour. Others, such as the ones shown today, were custom designed just for one particular trip or event.
Click image to download a 942-KB PDF of this menu.
The first menu is a special dinner menu used on Great Northern dining cars during the week of November 24-29, 1924. It features beef tenderloin or roast rib of beef taken from prize-winning beef purchased at auction at the Junior Livestock Show held in South St. Paul in early November. Some of the winners — obviously not all in the beef category — are pictured on the cover. The complete meal was $1.50, or about $22 today.
Click image to download a 512-KB PDF of this menu.
The second menu honors the Pacific International Livestock Exposition held in November, 1928. Unlike the first, it doesn’t focus on products that might have come from that exposition. The table d’hôte menu offers fish, ham, pot roast, chicken casserole, sausage, or omelets for $1 (about $15 today), while the a la carte has everything from chicken pot pie to tenderloin steaks.