How do you read a menu? Top down? Zoom in on the boxed listings? Decide by price? Whether there are photos? Or how they are described? All these are factors to how we read a menu.
At their most basic purpose, menus provide a listing of dishes available at a restaurant or food establishment. Dishes are grouped together by type and listed in the sequence in which they are to be eaten (typically starters/appetizers at the top or front of the menu; main meals in the middle; desserts at the end). Past particles are common in the descriptions, most frequently noting the cooking method (e.g., broiled, poached, seared).
Menus serve as a contract, what the chef promises to diners who in turn select from the menu and agree to fulfill their end of the contract with payment. In this way, menus play an important role in shaping the expectations of the diner. If the menu is designed well (i.e., provides enough details about the dish, is transparent about prices, and highlights what is unique about the restaurant), the diner’s expectations are met, if not surpassed with satisfaction.
Linguistically, menus also reveal social and cultural values of a place by showing what and how we eat and how we talk about it. French was common on early 1900 menus in America and was associated with gourmet but has experienced a decline in usage since the 2000s, now often perceived as pretentious. Besides indicative of cultural values, language on menus also is correlated to price. Research has shown that more expensive menus tend to use longer words, with each additional letter adding an 18-cent higher price a dish.
There is an increasing interest in knowing where our food comes from, and menus reflect this interest. Specifically, menus include provenance of the ingredients in the description of the dish; Balinese salt, Genting tomatoes from Malaysia, and locally sourced salad greens, for instance make the menu at Open Farm Community, Singapore.
Let’s look at a dinner menu from The Waldorf Astoria, Sep 29, 1959, provided by the delightful archives from the New York Public Library digital collection of 45,000 menus.
On thisWaldorf Astoria menu, the use of French and the rectangle box offset the house specialty, which reads, “Le Filet Mignon Trois Mousquetaires, Flambe a l’ Armagnac, Crepes de Homard Joinville,” and translated in English, reads: “Three Musketeers Filet Mignon Flambeed with Armagnac” and “Crepes made with Lobster and a Garnish.” Not nearly as elegant as the French wording! We also see the lack of the dollar sign, which is also common on fine dining menus. The cheese selection is highlighted as “From France”, suggesting its distinction over cheese from “Other countries”.
The type of dishes and how they are ordered also are clues to a culture’s way of eating. Western menus, for example, typically list dishes that are complete in themselves. Each diner picks their own dish, which traditionally consists of a main (meat or some form of protein) and two sides, typically a vegetable and a starch (rice, pasta, bread).
Common Man Coffee Roasters, a cafe and restaurant in Singapore serving Western food, has a Smash Burger: house-made “crispy on the outside, juicy inside” beef patties, cheddar, onion jam, lettuce, mayo, beetroot BBQ sauce & herbed fries. Textures, flavors, and seasonings are given. Descriptions such “house-made” and “crispy on the outside, juicy inside” make claims to uniqueness.
By contrast, Asian menus list platters that are meant to be shared. At Imperial Treasure, a Chinese restaurant also in Singapore, the extensive menu lists starter platters such as Marinated Jelly Fish Head, Roasted Pork, and Braised Chicken Feet with Abalone Sauce, to be followed by a barbecue selection such as whole Peking Duck, a soup such as Double-boiled Chinese Cabbage, Bamboo Pith & Mushroom Soup, and more. Emphasis is on the main ingredient and the cooking method.
Such a rich topic! Want to learn more? Listen to an interview we had on BBC Food Chain: How to Read a Menu with host Ruth Alexander and produced by Beatrice Pickup.