“The LRA has contributed hundreds menus to the archive,” said
Wendy Waren, VP of Communications. “At every restaurant I ask for a menu for
the archive and the restaurateurs are more than happy to have their menu live
at the Southern Food and Beverage Museum.”
To jump start the Menu Project, the LRA EXPO featured the
Magnificant Menu Contest in 2009 and asked members to submit their menus in
three categories—quick service, casual dining and fine dining. The menus were
judged on imagination, design and merchandising power, by members of the SoFab
board in advance of the EXPO and they were displayed in a special area for
attendees to view. Menus are also collected from special dinners and LRA functions with the end goal being that this collection will be used by food historians, journalists and culinary students. Several menus are soon-to-be shared with SoFab from the Irish House, Superior Seafood and the Hudson Whiskey Dinner at the Bourbon House.
“Menus are by their nature ephemeral, as restaurants change them daily or seasonally, printing them on material not meant to last,” said Liz Williams, President and Founder of SoFab. “People rarely save menus, unless they are marking a particularly important, celebratory meal.”
This is unfortunate as menus are often the only
physical remains of a restaurant’s past. Some menus serve to remind us of
dishes we will never eat again at restaurants whose doors have long been
shuttered. Others serve to mark a change in a restaurant’s life, particularly
those who have reopened after Hurricane Katrina.
“Their limited, but still tasty fare, mirrors the
dogged determination of the citizens of New Orleans to face loss of support and
lack of supplies with grace, tenacity and an unwavering appetite for good
food,” said Elizabeth Pearce, Senior Curator, commenting on the menus in the
exhibit, Missing New Orleans, at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. “That
exhibit contained menus from the SoFAB Collection from before and after
Hurricane Katrina.”
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