Popular Culture Reflected in Menus
People choose to collect weird things. Bugs. Fingernails from celebrities. Skulls. Every collection is a passion to the person doing the collecting, but many collections appeal to historians and other social scientists because they begin to create picture of a society, era, or interest. They can learn about popular culture by studying a collection of menus.
It is curious that someone would choose to collect menus and menu covers as anything other than a personal memento. Stealing a menu from the restaurant where a couple got engaged or where they wrote out the plans for a business makes sense. The idea that people would systematically seek out menus from restaurants purely for the sake of collecting them is much odder.
A menu collection can reveal how society went from valuing affordable family meals to theme experiences like the Hard Rock Cafe, Hooters, and celebrity restaurants. It can show the relationship between depictions of certain cuisines on television and in magazines and the number of similar restaurant popping up in major cities. It can be used to draw conclusions about the pace of society by the rise and fall of multi-course meals versus fast casual restaurants.
Collections can be so much more than a reflection of an individual person’s interests and tastes. They can actually be a window into a society, class, or culture.