The cover painting on this menu reminds me of what I call the region series of menus because there is one for the Atlantic provinces, Ontario, the prairie provinces, the Rockies, and British Columbia. The region series menus I’ve seen are dated 1948 and 1949 while this menu is from 1952. At 6″x9″, this steamship menu is also a little smaller than the 6-3/4″x10″ dining car menus of the region series, but I suspect they were all painted by the same in-house artist.

Click image to download a 938-KB PDF of this menu.

Dated November 19, the menu was probably used on a winter cruise rather than a regularly scheduled voyage. The left inner page is a programme of mainly classical music (probably recorded). The dinner menu on the right included a choice of four appetizers, three soups, two fish, three entrées, two vegetables, browned or mashed potatoes, a joint course of prime rib, salad, dessert, cheese and fruit, and demitasse.

The menu notes that this particular cruise was aboard the Lady Rodney, one of five “lady boats” built in 1928 for Canadian National (West Indies) Steamships Ltd (the actual name of the company). Rodney was the only one of the five to avoid being sunk during World War II, although Lady Nelson was reflected after being torpedoed.

This menu was probably from the Lady Rodney‘s last cruise, as in 1953 the two remaining lady boats were sold to Egypt and Canadian National got out of the West Indies cruise business. The British Empire was dissolving and the governments probably did not see a need for commonwealth vessels to serve West Indies ports when those of other countries would do.