This lunch menu was used for third-class passengers on the Empress of France on July 23, 1930. The Empress had left Quebec City on July 16 and was scheduled to arrive in Southampton on July 23, so this may have been the last meal served on that voyage, though an evening supper was a possibility.

Click image to download a 887-KB PDF of this menu.

With hors d’œuvres, soup, fish, a choice of four entrées including roast lamb, a cold buffet featuring salmon, pork, beef, ham, and mutton, salads, desserts, and coffee or tea, this menu is adequate but nowhere near as fancy as the first-class menus we have seen. Although roast lamb sounds attractive, the other entrées were noodles Livournaise (basically spaghetti with an olive-and-caper tomato sauce), cottage pie, and sheep’s tongue — all reasonable but clearly not first class.

Click image to go to the inn’s listing in the historic England database. Photo by ElisaRolle.

The menu is decorated with an unrealistically colorful interpretation of the old George Inn in Salisbury, England. As shown in the photo above, the inn is actually a traditional Tudor half-timber style. While the menu card dates it to 1121, most sources I read today date it to the 1360s, which makes more sense for a Tudor-style building. As the sign in the photograph indicates, the building today is used for shops, not as an inn.

Other than the colors used for the picture of the inn, this menu is rather dark, which makes it hard to read. It doesn’t appear to have faded or darkened over time, but perhaps the Empress‘s third-class dining room was well lit enough that people could still read the menu.