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More Empress Breakfast Menus

Posted on September 13, 2022 by Train LoverJanuary 31, 2023

Here are two more breakfast menus from the same voyage of the Empress of England whose menus have appeared in the last few days. Unfortunately, I don’t have lunch or dinner menus for these days.

Click image to download a 254-KB PDF of this menu.

Scotch pancakes were featured on the September 7 menu, so in keeping with the three-day rotation between Scotch, buckwheat, and whole wheat pancakes, Scotch are back on the menu for September 10. However, other foods must not have been on a three-day rotation as there are quite a few differences between these two menus. Continue reading →

September 9 Aboard the Empress

Posted on September 12, 2022 by Train LoverJanuary 31, 2023

Today’s Empress of England menus are all dated Friday, September 9, 1961. As with yesterday’s menus, we’ve seen the breakfast and lunch menu covers before but the dinner is new.

Click image to download a 260-KB PDF of this menu.

Today’s breakfast menu offered wholewheat griddle cakes. Based on the menus I’ve seen, Canadian Pacific’s Empress kitchens rotated between buckwheat, Scottish, and wholewheat pancakes. Continue reading →

A Day Aboard the Empress of England

Posted on September 11, 2022 by Train LoverJanuary 31, 2023

Today’s Empress of England menus are all dated Friday, September 8, 1961. We’ve seen the breakfast and lunch menu covers before but the dinner is new.

Click image to download a 266-KB PDF of this menu.

A close comparison of the breakfast menu with the one presented yesterday shows that the first third and last third of the two menus were identical. Only the middle third — fish, eggs, To Order, Cold, and the kind of pancakes served — was different. Instead of Scotch pancakes, this menu offered buckwheat pancakes. Continue reading →

First Steamship Across the Atlantic

Posted on September 10, 2022 by Train LoverJanuary 31, 2023

In Spring 1819, the S.S. Savannah, which had been built in her namesake city in Georgia, became the first steamship to cross the Atlantic. This was less impressive than it sounds, however, as the ship relied mainly on sails and used steam power only for about 11 percent of the trip. At less than 100 feet long, the ship was too small to carry enough coal to power the entire voyage.

Click image to download a 564-KB PDF of this menu.

Nevertheless, this was a historic trip and it would be 18 years before a ship made the entire journey under steam. Canadian Pacific commemorated the trip with this menu cover, which it used for lunches on its trans-Atlantic steamers in 1961. This particular lunch menu was for September 8 on the Empress of England and offers at least as many items as the dinner menus on that voyage. Continue reading →

Samuel de Champlain Dinner Menu

Posted on September 9, 2022 by Train LoverJanuary 31, 2023

The person on the cover of this menu is supposed to be Champlain (1567-1635), who founded and governed the early colony of Quebec and New France in what is now Canada. In fact, he never sat for a portrait so no one knows what he really looked like. Although he spent most of his adult life exploring or administering Canada, the background of this cover shows not a scene in New France but la Rochelle, France, the port from which Champlain embarked on his trips to the New World.

Click image to download a 633-KB PDF of this menu.

This dinner menu was used on the Empress of England on September 6, 1961. It lists 17 courses or categories of food, and one of the entrées, beef stroganoff, was also featured in the center as a chef’s special. Frogs’ legs were also on the menu, while someone wanting more American-like food could get roast turkey.

Sir Alexander MacKenzie Dinner Menu

Posted on September 8, 2022 by Train LoverJanuary 31, 2023

This menu is a tribute to Alexander MacKenzie, who in 1793 became the first European to cross the Rocky Mountains and reach the Pacific Coast. The building in the background is a “crofters cottage,” meaning the home of a tenant farmer, on the Island of Harris, where MacKenzie was born.

Click image to download a 424-KB PDF of this menu.

The cover painting, as well as the paintings on the other menus in this series, is signed “Lendon.” A book of Canadian Pacific posters includes a 1930 poster by Lendon, but the authors of the book were unable to find out any information about him. The signature on that poster is “Lendon London,” indicating that the artist was from England, not Canada. Continue reading →

Pont du Gard Dinner Menu

Posted on September 7, 2022 by Train LoverJanuary 31, 2023

Issued at least as early as 1956, a series of Canadian Pacific Empress dinner menus featured paintings of historic people with a historic architectural structure that was somehow associated with that person. Today’s menu shows the Pont du Gard, which is a part of a Roman aqueduct in southern France that is nearly 2,000 years old. The only association between the man in the picture, Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, and the Pont du Gard is that he was born nearby.

Click image to download a 493-KB PDF of this menu.

As the cover text says, Montcalm’s claim to fame is that he led the French troops in the French and Indian War in Quebec, where he died in battle in 1759. He appeared in the classic book, Last of the Mohicans and was portrayed by Patrice Chéreau in the 1992 movie. Continue reading →

Silver Nef Dinner Menu

Posted on September 6, 2022 by Train LoverJanuary 31, 2023

“Nef” is an unusual enough word that it isn’t in my spell-checker’s dictionary. Yet the on-line Merriam-Webster defines it as “an ornamental table utensil (as for holding a napkin, knife, and spoon) shaped like a ship.” The back of this menu admits that it “has no real bearing on the history of sailing ships. It is above all an example of the silversmith’s art.” But it is likely that people with nautical experience are most likely to encounter silver (and other) nefs.

Click image to download a 527-KB PDF of this menu.

The Silver Nef menu is a part of a series that also included a man-of-war ship viewed from the rear and early steam locomotives. This particular menu was used on July 31, 1961 on the Empress of Canada, which had departed Montreal on July 27 and was scheduled to arrive in Liverpool on August 3. Continue reading →

Breakfast & Lunch on the Empress of England

Posted on September 5, 2022 by Train LoverJanuary 31, 2023

Breakfast and lunch menus on Canadian Pacific’s trans-Atlantic steamships in 1957 were not as fancy as the dinner menus, and the lunch menu is one we have previously seen aboard Canadian Pacific dining cars. The breakfast menu is printed on the same cream-colored paper as the dinner menus, but it is a card rather than a folder.

Click image to download a 253-KB PDF of this menu.

The breakfast menu offered fruits, juices, cereals, soups, eggs, fish, black pudding, lamb, calf’s liver, buckwheat cakes, and waffles, among other things. The menu is decorated with a multi-colored Canadian Pacific script reflecting the colors of the rose on the left and autumn leaves on the right. Continue reading →

John Constable Dinner Menu

Posted on September 4, 2022 by Train LoverJanuary 31, 2023

Today’s menu features an English landscape painter named John Constable (1776-1837). The cover also shows Willy Lott’s Cottage, a house that was featured in several of Constable’s paintings and that survives today, partly because it was popularized by Constable. One of the paintings that featured the cottage, the Hay Wain, won a gold medal in Paris and today is considered one of the two most popular paintings in England.

Click image to download a 700-KB PDF of this menu.

This particular menu was used on the Empress of England on June 16, 1957. This was for the “au revoir dinner” and page 2 of the menu includes a summary of the log of the six-day voyage. Continue reading →