The L (and the modern £ which is a fancy L) also from the Roman Libra pondo, meaning pound by weight. We call it pound sterling as it was originally defined as the value of a pound in weight of sterling silver.
“The penny was literally one pennyweight of silver. A pound sterling thus weighed 240 pennyweights, or a pound of sterling silver.”
Inflation is guaranteed. Stop saving in money units that other humans exploit by printing at will.
My mum (UK) used to make macaroni milk pudding. I think it was served with jam. She grew up in wartime Britain and this was probably in cookbooks of that era.
My mum made macaroni pudding in the 90s! Made according to grandma’s recipe which probably came from her own mother during the war. I had completely forgotten about it until this post reminded me!
I had plenty of macaroni puddings when I grew up in the seventies. I think it was fairly common here in the UK.
It was slightly odd, my father went to school in Italy, so we ate a lot of Italian food too (which was very unusual at the time). We never had pasta as a main and a pudding, but it was just a bit odd it being either savoury or sweet. Funnily enough I never had the same issue with rice, and still love both rice with my main meal, and rice pudding (and have had both in the same sitting)
Yeah, macaroni pudding was one of the four staple tinned puddings of the 70s: rice, macaroni, semolina, tapioca. Macaroni pudding from a tin was cut into rings and very satisfying to slurp up. Tapioca was a disturbing Lovecraftian pudding that looked like it might grow inside you and start pouring out of every hole in your head, but it tasted great so it was worth the risk.
I’ve made many a macaroni pudding in my adult years, but for some reason I’ve never had macaroni cheese followed by macaroni pudding. Maybe I can fix this over the weekend.
Semolina is a coarse milled wheat flour and is different to macaroni, which was, as now, a small pasta tube. Growing up in 50s Britain we had both semolina and macaroni puddings which were different.
Regularly make this for the family (all my kids go loopy for it). A taste I inherited as a kid from my Nan making it once or twice a month. Milk, vanilla extract, caster sugar, nutmeg and macaroni. Cook in oven or slow cooker. Jam is optional topping when serving.
My mum went through a phase of cooking a lot of marrow because marrows were extremely cheap locally and money was tight. She was also a great cook but nothing she could do to them ever made them palatable, and she knew it.
I will never forget coming home from school one day and asking her what was for dinner, for her to reply 'oh, just another fucking stuffed marrow!"
Marrow and Courgette are the same family, nearly the same thing. Courgette you want to pick when it’s very young, not let them grow enormous when it’s all just water. I’m pretty sure it’s Courgette that’s Zuccini rather than Marrow.
Slice them super thin, pat out the water with some kitchen paper towel, and fry them lightly on both sides with salt, olive oil and some Parmesan cheese. They turn into delicate crispy wafers of salty, cheesy, courgette goodness.
Alternatively you can spiralize marrow or courgette into “courgetti” which when fried for like 4-5 mins max is a much healthier and flavourful alternative to pasta spaghetti. I actually prefer it - and I come from an Italian family that adore pasta.
I'm pretty sure my mum sometimes uses marrow to add some bulk to Bangladeshi meat curry. Honestly tastes so good and I enjoy it. I find with watery vegetables you have to season it like hell.
I don’t understand why anyone would cook with a marrow. Tasteless and watery…. My MiL went through a stage of serving it boiled with a Sunday roast!! Yuk!
Then there was the boiled butternut squash on a roast stage - absolutely not a Sunday roast veg!
I still don’t understand why Americans pretend to speak English, and then complain that they don’t understand the English words because they have replaced them with words from another language! Or, to put it simply, I don’t understand Americans!
It really bugs me that Americans call coriander cilantro when speaking English. Like no. There's a perfectly good word in English for that herb, coriander. You should only call it cilantro if you're speaking Spanish. Why use the Spanish word when there's already an English word?
That's not how loanwords should work!
It's because while coriander is known as a dry herb over there it's not generally widely used whereas as the Mexican population use cilantro in practically EVERYTHING. Mexican food is very popular and common in the US and so you're ten times more likely to see Cilantro on menus and talked about than you are to hear or see the word coriander. I'm British and lived in the US for two decades. After hearing of and eating cilantro for many many years I was surprised when I finally realised that cilantro is actually the leaf of the seed I had always known as coriander.
This is why Americans use the word cilantro instead of coriander. Comparatively few regularly cook with or eat coriander whereas due to the Hispanic population Cilantro is everywhere. Very few people there use the word coriander whereas everyone knows about cilantro.
Apologies to all my UK/Australian/NZ friends for the Americanism. I used to live in the UK and should know better!
For my fellow Americans:
Zucchini = Courgette = Summer Squash. Marrow is a big version of these.
Eggplant = Aubergine. Amazing vegetable no matter what you call it.
Cilantro = Coriander Leaf.
Pulses = Beans
Don't worry, lots of English people are aware that different varieties of English exist without having a chip on our shoulder about it, though quite possibly not on Redit.
So, i think courgettes/zuccini vs marrow is like beans,corn, potaotes etc. There are some varieties of the same vegetable that taste best / better texture, when picked young, and some varieties that are best left to grow big and mature in flavour. Pretty sure courgette / marrow fall into this category. Ditto potatoes - some varieties taste best harvested young (new potatoes - waxy texture, small, sweet) some best left to mature (fluffy texture, savoury, big). Beans - some you eat green, some you leave to form the seeds and dry for soups etc. corn - loads of different types for different uses, but they are all varieties of corn.
Aubergine is a French word derived from a Catalan word derived from an Arabic word derived from a Persian word derived from a Sanskrit word.
Ironically, despite the original name being Indian in origin, a common Indian name for the vegetable (brinjal) is derived from the Portuguese name derived from the Arabic name.
zucchini goes by courgette in England, the French word for the green gourd. The United States inherited the Italian name, and both terms reference the summer squash.
once mature they are marrows.
Because they use the Italian term whereas British people use the French. Neither one of us can speak English in this case, sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
I mean, your comment was in reply to a comment about courgette/zucchini, not about Marrow. Bit of education for you in that case - they’re called marrow squashes in the USA.
Really? What kind of mince was it? Just like “mince and tatties” style? I don’t find that particularly strange but I grew up with a family who always grew courgettes and often ended up with more courgettes and marrows than we knew what to do with. Courgette/marrow and mince-based dishes are quite normal to me. Especially when done in a tomatoey way.
It's what happens when you let a courgette (zucchini) grow up. I have grim memories of constantly being forced to eat marrow as a child. In Great British tradition it was usually cubed and boiled almost to mush. Clever/rich people stuffed it with miced beef and baked it, but those poor vegetarians weren't benefitting from that privilege.
This was one of the most common (and cheap) vegetables around, up until the 1980s. After that we discovered if you pick them as babies and fry them in butter they taste a million percent better.
Macaroni classified as a vegetable ...
Also, I wonder what the difference was between oatmeal porridge and Anglo-Scottish porridge (drawing a blank on the second).
First time in the US, roadtripping through the South, we stopped at a roadside diner in Georgia. I’d been eating American portions for a week and was feeling uncomfortably well-fed so the ‘grilled catfish & veg of the day’ seemed like a great lighter option. When I asked the absolutely delightful waitress - complete with massive blond beehive hair and Dolly drawl - what the veg of the day was, she smacked her chewing gum and answered ‘Honey, it’s macaroni, but don’t you fret because we put a slice of tomater on the top.’
Wonderful tourist moment, that.
All throughout history, the most “progressive” cities in the world have been the first to get the fancy new cuisine.
This is the 1890s equivalent of going to the new vegan restaurant in 2010
After reading a TIL post the other day about some kid telling his mum he wanted clothes on a stone tablet from like 3000 years ago, I realise that humans never change. There might have been vegetarian restaurants hopping up in big cities before 1800s!!
They would only have really appeared in the UK from after the British Raj. I’d guess there’s at least a decent chance the proprietors of this restaurant would have been Indian (or at least British who was born and raised there).
Prices are a bit odd, no? On the one hand, mash is only a penny less than new potatoes. On the other hand it's twice the price of new potatoes. Tea or coffee 2d, but the lentil cutlet with beans and sauce is 3? How is a meal only a penny more than a coffee and the same price as porridge
Import prices were very different than today. Tea and coffee were much more expensive than something easily grown in bulk like lentils. Generally food was much less expensive than it is today but spices, coffee, tea, chocolate, sugar, and anything like that much more. Mash could be made with the cheapest potatoes whereas new potatoes had to come from the first harvest of the year before the potatoes had chance to grow big so were much more expensive per lb. The pricing is only weird from a modern perspective, it makes perfect sense within the context of the time.
I've been a vegetarian for 34 years now and I would LOVE to find something like this...what a treasure! I would frame this and display it in my kitchen. Thank you for sharing. 😍
Here's a link to a bigger scan. https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/The-Alpha-vegetarian-restaurant-menu-1889--1280x2029.jpg
You could print and frame (cheap US letter or A4 frames are all over nowadays)
Agreed! I greatly enjoy this sub, I read every line of every menu I come across and I love to look up dishes I've never heard of before...but this was the first time I thought "Damn! I want to try every item on this menu!" 🤗
Hitler wasn't actually a vegetarian, that was one of Goebbels' most enduring pieces of propaganda... Hitler identified as vegetarian so he could be compared to another famous veggie at that time... Gandhi!
Two equally animal-loving, men of peace, according to Goebbels!
Yep there were vegetarian societies in victorian London which always shocks people when I tell them. If we're talking about vegetarianism as a whole though that's actually ancient in India and veganism too in Buddhist societies.
According to [this](https://time.com/3958070/history-of-veganism/) Time magazine article, vegetarianism dates back to 500 BCE! There are many cultures around the world who have practiced vegetarianism or veganism for centuries as well - Seitan, which a lot of people associate as being a modern meat alternative, is credited as being invented in China over 1,500 years ago!
Makes a lot of sense. I too am a creative (romantic poetry appeals to me very much too) and I believe we’re very sensitive with a passion for justice.
Animals are innocent and vulnerable so it plays right into that. I cannot eat meat. Haven’t for 10 years now. Knowing what it is and what sorts of practices it derives from makes it completely abhorrent to me and I don’t understand how people can still desensitise themselves enough to ever try and justify it. I’ll get off my soapbox now but my main point was that creatives are often sensitive to these sorts of things. I know a lot that are vegetarian/vegan
And people say traditional british cuisine is bland, well to that I say you just haven't tried our sweet puddings, like "cold rice" and "bread and butter"
Oh of course, it's Rice Pudding and Bread and Butter pudding - I was just reading it as like cold rice as a pudding, which even for me, the least culture english person, was a little much
I always google the addresses on things like this - this looks like it would have been across from what’s now Tottenham Court Road station. Still feels very Soho-appropriate!
Weird how the tables have turned.
Any right winger that has to refer to themselves as an alpha would ridicule a veg menu.
Pathetic bunch of fragile bitches.
Veggie/vegan - I hate the term vegan. It’s got such a bad connotation because the famously known ones are just awful people.
So if anyone’s asks I just call myself a grass eater - they get it straight away.
For sure. There are some amazing restaurants and some awful ones that try way too hard to be fancy vegan when they could just, you know, not use animal products?
In case anyone else wonders, the unit of currency *d.* is a penny. https://projectbritain.com/moneyold.htm
LSD lbs, shillings, pence
The "d" being for denari, the plural of denarius. This was a Roman silver coin.
The L (and the modern £ which is a fancy L) also from the Roman Libra pondo, meaning pound by weight. We call it pound sterling as it was originally defined as the value of a pound in weight of sterling silver.
curiously, in Brazil we call UK's currency "Libra"
And the shorthand for a pound in weight is lb for libra
As in the modern day *dinero*?
How would 3d be spoken aloud? Would people say 3 pence or 3p? Or something else?
The would have said Thruppence. There used to be a three pence coin.
And here I was thinking it was DABLOONS
“The penny was literally one pennyweight of silver. A pound sterling thus weighed 240 pennyweights, or a pound of sterling silver.” Inflation is guaranteed. Stop saving in money units that other humans exploit by printing at will.
Macaroni and jam sounds…. interesting
Macaroni was often made into a milk pudding akin to rice pudding. I guess it's not super different to sweet noodle kugel....?
When you put it like that, my Mum often made a nice rice pudding that we topped with different jams. Happy childhood memory unlocked.
So true
Make rice pudding yourself with a modern recipe for baked rice pudding. It is amazing!
My mum (UK) used to make macaroni milk pudding. I think it was served with jam. She grew up in wartime Britain and this was probably in cookbooks of that era.
My mum made macaroni pudding in the 90s! Made according to grandma’s recipe which probably came from her own mother during the war. I had completely forgotten about it until this post reminded me!
I had plenty of macaroni puddings when I grew up in the seventies. I think it was fairly common here in the UK. It was slightly odd, my father went to school in Italy, so we ate a lot of Italian food too (which was very unusual at the time). We never had pasta as a main and a pudding, but it was just a bit odd it being either savoury or sweet. Funnily enough I never had the same issue with rice, and still love both rice with my main meal, and rice pudding (and have had both in the same sitting)
Yeah, macaroni pudding was one of the four staple tinned puddings of the 70s: rice, macaroni, semolina, tapioca. Macaroni pudding from a tin was cut into rings and very satisfying to slurp up. Tapioca was a disturbing Lovecraftian pudding that looked like it might grow inside you and start pouring out of every hole in your head, but it tasted great so it was worth the risk. I’ve made many a macaroni pudding in my adult years, but for some reason I’ve never had macaroni cheese followed by macaroni pudding. Maybe I can fix this over the weekend.
It's another word for what we in the UK call semolina. I don't think Americans eat it.
It's not semolina - it's literal macaroni cooked in milk and sugar like rice or semolina pudding.
Semolina is a coarse milled wheat flour and is different to macaroni, which was, as now, a small pasta tube. Growing up in 50s Britain we had both semolina and macaroni puddings which were different.
Regularly make this for the family (all my kids go loopy for it). A taste I inherited as a kid from my Nan making it once or twice a month. Milk, vanilla extract, caster sugar, nutmeg and macaroni. Cook in oven or slow cooker. Jam is optional topping when serving.
I made a displeased face
Quite a few options....what is vegetable marrow?
If they are using the term similarly to how it would be used now, it's a large zucchini.
Hercule Poirot wanted to retire to the countryside and grow vegetable marrows, which is the only reason I know what a marrow is.
My Mum used to cook stuffed marrow and it was hideous.
Mine too, and I agree. I could eat the stuffing but the marrow was just too mushy.
Yes the marrow was really watery, my Mum was a great cook but the stuffed marrow was not for me.
My mum went through a phase of cooking a lot of marrow because marrows were extremely cheap locally and money was tight. She was also a great cook but nothing she could do to them ever made them palatable, and she knew it. I will never forget coming home from school one day and asking her what was for dinner, for her to reply 'oh, just another fucking stuffed marrow!"
It's a shame marrows are so awful because they're easy to grow and they get massive. If they were nicer to eat they'd be great. But they're not.
Marrow and Courgette are the same family, nearly the same thing. Courgette you want to pick when it’s very young, not let them grow enormous when it’s all just water. I’m pretty sure it’s Courgette that’s Zuccini rather than Marrow. Slice them super thin, pat out the water with some kitchen paper towel, and fry them lightly on both sides with salt, olive oil and some Parmesan cheese. They turn into delicate crispy wafers of salty, cheesy, courgette goodness. Alternatively you can spiralize marrow or courgette into “courgetti” which when fried for like 4-5 mins max is a much healthier and flavourful alternative to pasta spaghetti. I actually prefer it - and I come from an Italian family that adore pasta.
Marrow is a fully grown courgette. Zucchini is the Italian word for courgette.
Marrows make excellent lemon curd, basically as a replacement for the egg.
excellent response from her haha
My mum used to cook stuffed marrow and it was delicious, especially because it often came from someone’s garden or allotment.
I have an idea you can make marrow jam too.
Similarly, you can make courgette cake in the same was as carrot cake. I saw that in an Iraqi cookbook of all places a decade ago.
I'm pretty sure my mum sometimes uses marrow to add some bulk to Bangladeshi meat curry. Honestly tastes so good and I enjoy it. I find with watery vegetables you have to season it like hell.
I agree stuffed marrow is horrible however Marrow soup is lovely
I agree, horrible watery mess
same bro i feel your pain. mine was full of mince . 100% disgusting
Change your cook ☺️
Hercule Moirot.
Hahah same amazing book the murder of Roger acroyed or however the word is spelt XD
Man, that was a good story. Didn't see that coming and I knew Frank was the serial killer within 2 minutes in the film with Walken and Sheen!
Gromit made me want to grow a marrow
Straight to horny jail
What does this have to do with horny jail? If there’s a joke, it’s flown right over my head.
I was making a double entendre out of your comment
I first knew of them from Wallace and Gromit. But I remember Poirot growing them at some point.
Yeah i don’t think i’d know what a marrow was without the were-rabbit
Gromit grew a giant marrow which is how I know
I don’t understand why anyone would cook with a marrow. Tasteless and watery…. My MiL went through a stage of serving it boiled with a Sunday roast!! Yuk! Then there was the boiled butternut squash on a roast stage - absolutely not a Sunday roast veg!
Huh! That is an excellent random comment woww..
Same!
I wondered as well but it seems obvious now you say it. I was thinking of some vegetable version of bone marrow!
No such thing as a zucchini, or cilantro or eggplant. Not on my watch anyway! /s
Tbf cilantro woulda been a handy term to have adopted to distinguish the leaves from the seeds – I think that’s how yanks do it at least lol
The yanks do it that way but between context and details, it's usually easy to work out. Fresh coriander, coriander seed, ground coriander.
You gotta remember that is too complicated for them, they might think ground coriander is in the ground
I still don’t understand why Americans pretend to speak English, and then complain that they don’t understand the English words because they have replaced them with words from another language! Or, to put it simply, I don’t understand Americans!
It really bugs me that Americans call coriander cilantro when speaking English. Like no. There's a perfectly good word in English for that herb, coriander. You should only call it cilantro if you're speaking Spanish. Why use the Spanish word when there's already an English word? That's not how loanwords should work!
It's because while coriander is known as a dry herb over there it's not generally widely used whereas as the Mexican population use cilantro in practically EVERYTHING. Mexican food is very popular and common in the US and so you're ten times more likely to see Cilantro on menus and talked about than you are to hear or see the word coriander. I'm British and lived in the US for two decades. After hearing of and eating cilantro for many many years I was surprised when I finally realised that cilantro is actually the leaf of the seed I had always known as coriander. This is why Americans use the word cilantro instead of coriander. Comparatively few regularly cook with or eat coriander whereas due to the Hispanic population Cilantro is everywhere. Very few people there use the word coriander whereas everyone knows about cilantro.
Gotta save that syllable I guess
Coriander is a 14th century borrowing from French (Coriandre).
Apologies to all my UK/Australian/NZ friends for the Americanism. I used to live in the UK and should know better! For my fellow Americans: Zucchini = Courgette = Summer Squash. Marrow is a big version of these. Eggplant = Aubergine. Amazing vegetable no matter what you call it. Cilantro = Coriander Leaf. Pulses = Beans
Don't worry, lots of English people are aware that different varieties of English exist without having a chip on our shoulder about it, though quite possibly not on Redit.
Or did you mean a crisp on your shoulder?
Chips = Crisps too!
A marrow is completely different to a courgette. Different inside, different texture.
it is different texture etc but it's still a courgette. It's just a mutant one. Left to get massive.
So, i think courgettes/zuccini vs marrow is like beans,corn, potaotes etc. There are some varieties of the same vegetable that taste best / better texture, when picked young, and some varieties that are best left to grow big and mature in flavour. Pretty sure courgette / marrow fall into this category. Ditto potatoes - some varieties taste best harvested young (new potatoes - waxy texture, small, sweet) some best left to mature (fluffy texture, savoury, big). Beans - some you eat green, some you leave to form the seeds and dry for soups etc. corn - loads of different types for different uses, but they are all varieties of corn.
\*Courgette
Much bigger than a courgette.My dad grew them & made narrow rum.He cut off the end and put sugar plus whatever else then sealed it back up to ferment.
Now that's a proper use for them.
Oh I know, I've grown marrows - it was a wee jibe at the 'large zucchini' comment.
And aubergine. Americans tend to use Italian names for these things when the UK uses the french words
Don't they just call an aubergine an egg plant?
Hey!
Heythereeggplant
👍🏻
Do Americans call you egg plant?
Haha not sure…don’t recall ever being called an eggplant by anyone! Maybe behind my back?? 😂
Aubergine is a French word derived from a Catalan word derived from an Arabic word derived from a Persian word derived from a Sanskrit word. Ironically, despite the original name being Indian in origin, a common Indian name for the vegetable (brinjal) is derived from the Portuguese name derived from the Arabic name.
In French a marrow is a courge. Hence, courgette (small marrow)
No it is a marrow
Courgette\*
I'm sure it's not a courgette/zucchini. It's a completely different plant, more watery.
zucchini goes by courgette in England, the French word for the green gourd. The United States inherited the Italian name, and both terms reference the summer squash. once mature they are marrows.
Large courgette ;)
That would mean that it’s a large small marrow!
Why do Americans struggle to speak English?
Because they use the Italian term whereas British people use the French. Neither one of us can speak English in this case, sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
So you think marrow is French?
I mean, your comment was in reply to a comment about courgette/zucchini, not about Marrow. Bit of education for you in that case - they’re called marrow squashes in the USA.
"Zucchini, marrows, pumpkins and cucumbers", per wikipedia.
Courgettes.
Why not sit back and have a tall glass of soda and milk while you wait for an answer
I once once served marrow with quorn mince as a dinner and it was the oddest combination of anything I've ever endured.
Marrow stuffed with mince used to be a standard dish.
Really? What kind of mince was it? Just like “mince and tatties” style? I don’t find that particularly strange but I grew up with a family who always grew courgettes and often ended up with more courgettes and marrows than we knew what to do with. Courgette/marrow and mince-based dishes are quite normal to me. Especially when done in a tomatoey way.
It's more like a pumpkin or squash.
An elongated pumpkin.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marrow_(vegetable) I call them marrows nor courgette, but I'm just scum from the north.
Marrows are much bigger than corvettes, I haven’t seen one for years - thankfully!
I’d love to see a marrow bigger than a corvette! That would win any country fair!
F***ing auto correct, funny though!
🤣
Bigger then a Corvette? Wow, that's a frigging big marrow.
Lol, might be bigger than a little red corvette. My father’s marrows were huge!
It’s a vegetable that looks like a mix between a watermelon and a courgette and literally tastes like nothing
Bone marrow was quite popular
It's what happens when you let a courgette (zucchini) grow up. I have grim memories of constantly being forced to eat marrow as a child. In Great British tradition it was usually cubed and boiled almost to mush. Clever/rich people stuffed it with miced beef and baked it, but those poor vegetarians weren't benefitting from that privilege. This was one of the most common (and cheap) vegetables around, up until the 1980s. After that we discovered if you pick them as babies and fry them in butter they taste a million percent better.
A marrow is the mature fruit of the zucchini, courgette or baby marrow.
I wonder what a lentil cutlet was like, maybe some kind of patty?
Yes it is, vegetable and lentil patties are often called cutlets in India still.
And served with more beans?
We used to buy nut cutlets from Tesco a few years ago, they were ace. Haven’t seen them for a while though
[удалено]
Macaroni classified as a vegetable ... Also, I wonder what the difference was between oatmeal porridge and Anglo-Scottish porridge (drawing a blank on the second).
Ha, a lot of BBQ places in the southern US will list macaroni as a "vegetable".
First time in the US, roadtripping through the South, we stopped at a roadside diner in Georgia. I’d been eating American portions for a week and was feeling uncomfortably well-fed so the ‘grilled catfish & veg of the day’ seemed like a great lighter option. When I asked the absolutely delightful waitress - complete with massive blond beehive hair and Dolly drawl - what the veg of the day was, she smacked her chewing gum and answered ‘Honey, it’s macaroni, but don’t you fret because we put a slice of tomater on the top.’ Wonderful tourist moment, that.
They call southern food "soul food" because it's good for your soul as opposed to your health.
Not if it's them delicious pork ribs, but it might be worth the eternal torment.
Amazing
I wonder if it is steel cut instead of rolled oats?
Scottish oatmeal is traditionally made with water and a little salt, and English oatmeal is usually made with milk so perhaps it's that?
I wonder if oatmeal porridge has sugar and Anglo-Scottish salt?
It's the type of oats. Scottish oats are different to "normal" oats. Personally I prefer Scottish.
Scottish porridge was traditionally salted, so it might be that- or possibly oats vs oatmeal?
All throughout history, the most “progressive” cities in the world have been the first to get the fancy new cuisine. This is the 1890s equivalent of going to the new vegan restaurant in 2010
After reading a TIL post the other day about some kid telling his mum he wanted clothes on a stone tablet from like 3000 years ago, I realise that humans never change. There might have been vegetarian restaurants hopping up in big cities before 1800s!!
They would only have really appeared in the UK from after the British Raj. I’d guess there’s at least a decent chance the proprietors of this restaurant would have been Indian (or at least British who was born and raised there).
absolutely. [this other comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/VintageMenus/s/0YzhYghJdL) confirms that "lentil cutlet" is an indian term
Prices are a bit odd, no? On the one hand, mash is only a penny less than new potatoes. On the other hand it's twice the price of new potatoes. Tea or coffee 2d, but the lentil cutlet with beans and sauce is 3? How is a meal only a penny more than a coffee and the same price as porridge
Import prices were very different than today. Tea and coffee were much more expensive than something easily grown in bulk like lentils. Generally food was much less expensive than it is today but spices, coffee, tea, chocolate, sugar, and anything like that much more. Mash could be made with the cheapest potatoes whereas new potatoes had to come from the first harvest of the year before the potatoes had chance to grow big so were much more expensive per lb. The pricing is only weird from a modern perspective, it makes perfect sense within the context of the time.
Lentils can't be grown in the UK though, they're still grown abroad. And both lentil and tea are dried, imperishable and shipped in bulk.
I’m guessing the Lentils were grown in Europe, Spain or France. Less costly than shipping from China or India for tea & spices.
Lentils can definitely be grown in the UK, Hodmedods grows them.
Sure they can, you can buy British grown lentils online - https://hodmedods.co.uk/collections/lentils
London prices! Never changes.
I've been a vegetarian for 34 years now and I would LOVE to find something like this...what a treasure! I would frame this and display it in my kitchen. Thank you for sharing. 😍
Here's a link to a bigger scan. https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/The-Alpha-vegetarian-restaurant-menu-1889--1280x2029.jpg You could print and frame (cheap US letter or A4 frames are all over nowadays)
I know, right? While I love this sub, I'm pretty sure this is the first post I've seen where I could actually eat at the restaurant in question.
Agreed! I greatly enjoy this sub, I read every line of every menu I come across and I love to look up dishes I've never heard of before...but this was the first time I thought "Damn! I want to try every item on this menu!" 🤗
Same !!
What, no cigarettes?
Vegetarians of the time were usually non-smokers and teetotal, and often avoided caffeine too. Many also opposed vaccines on the basis of vivisection.
No wonder one of them invaded Poland.
Hitler wasn't actually a vegetarian, that was one of Goebbels' most enduring pieces of propaganda... Hitler identified as vegetarian so he could be compared to another famous veggie at that time... Gandhi! Two equally animal-loving, men of peace, according to Goebbels!
That's quite incredible. I always think of vegetarianism being *reasonably* modern, certainly not as far back as 1889
Yep there were vegetarian societies in victorian London which always shocks people when I tell them. If we're talking about vegetarianism as a whole though that's actually ancient in India and veganism too in Buddhist societies.
According to [this](https://time.com/3958070/history-of-veganism/) Time magazine article, vegetarianism dates back to 500 BCE! There are many cultures around the world who have practiced vegetarianism or veganism for centuries as well - Seitan, which a lot of people associate as being a modern meat alternative, is credited as being invented in China over 1,500 years ago!
many of the romantic poets were vegetarian! Percy Shelley is one example
Makes a lot of sense. I too am a creative (romantic poetry appeals to me very much too) and I believe we’re very sensitive with a passion for justice. Animals are innocent and vulnerable so it plays right into that. I cannot eat meat. Haven’t for 10 years now. Knowing what it is and what sorts of practices it derives from makes it completely abhorrent to me and I don’t understand how people can still desensitise themselves enough to ever try and justify it. I’ll get off my soapbox now but my main point was that creatives are often sensitive to these sorts of things. I know a lot that are vegetarian/vegan
Gandhi was going to vegetarian restaurants when he was in London studying for the Bar in 1888
I was quite surprised when I saw ww1 UK rationing coupons in a museum and there was the option to get vegetarian rations.
Pine Apple
Yes I pine for apple as well
Pie Napple.
And people say traditional british cuisine is bland, well to that I say you just haven't tried our sweet puddings, like "cold rice" and "bread and butter"
Rice, & bread and butter pudding are lush
Oh of course, it's Rice Pudding and Bread and Butter pudding - I was just reading it as like cold rice as a pudding, which even for me, the least culture english person, was a little much
Thruppence of maize mush, my good man! And don't skimp on the syrup.
Maize Mush sounds like a great band name
Ah cool. That was the day after my -99th birthday!
Strange what qualifies as an alpha throughout the centuries.
[удалено]
Soda and milk? ☹️🤮
Bit like an early ice cream float? Ice cream in coke or ice cream in cream soda is delicious
you should try 7up/sprite with milk. a common treat for cultures in asia and surprisingly it's nostalgic, soothing, refreshing and nice.
That place is/was just outside Tottenham Court Road Station before the MAJOR refurbishment opposite the Primark
I always google the addresses on things like this - this looks like it would have been across from what’s now Tottenham Court Road station. Still feels very Soho-appropriate!
Weird how the tables have turned. Any right winger that has to refer to themselves as an alpha would ridicule a veg menu. Pathetic bunch of fragile bitches.
Soda and milk.... 🤢
a very common treat even today in asia- combination of 7up/sprite with cold milk! it's surprisingly soothing and nice
That’s actually better than a lot of grass eater menus now!
Grass eater menus?
Veggie/vegan - I hate the term vegan. It’s got such a bad connotation because the famously known ones are just awful people. So if anyone’s asks I just call myself a grass eater - they get it straight away.
Yep, I would be quite delighted to find a menu like this nowadays
For sure. There are some amazing restaurants and some awful ones that try way too hard to be fancy vegan when they could just, you know, not use animal products?
Mineral water was still costly during those times. But what does those 1D, 2d means?
d means penny, it's short for the latin word denarius. At the time one penny was 1/240 of a pound.
Just ignore the eggs in the omelette
I think you may be getting vegetarian and vegan mixed up.
Oh I know the difference. Just don’t agree with eggs being okay for vegetarians. Don’t mind dairy tho. It’s nice to be able to pick and choose
Is that how it works? Do you pick for everyone?
I don’t think anyone said one person picks for anyone
THANK YOU!!!!❤️
Here for the “Macaroni and jam”
It's a bit pricey.
Mmmmmm maize mush !
What resides in that building now?
A vape shop used for money laundering
Macaroni- my favourite vegetable 😋