This "meatless" menu from 1917 Macy's lunch counter features Charlotte Russe as a dessert, which I've included photos of, as I've never seen one before. I have, however, walked by plenty of the clothing stores.
Charlotte Russe dates back to 1800s in France, although the name suggests the creator may have had Russian roots. There are many variations, but in essence it's a chilled mousse dessert lined with ladyfingers or sliced cake pieces around the perimeter.
Even though this lunch menu features plenty of seafood and poultry, it does seem to be devoid of pork and beef. In that sense, meatless may have meant something different than how we view it today.
#vintage #History #desserts
This lovely Twelfth Cake is adorned with gum paste decorations crafted from original 18th-century molds.
The icing, tinted with cochineal as was customary at the time, adds color. The two crowns, traditional embellishments for cakes like this, were formed from ten individual shapes pressed from a rare late-18th-century mold.
Other ornaments were made using two carved wooden molds, known as confectioner’s boards. While designs for these cakes varied greatly, the one described here, made with authentic Georgian confectioners' tools, provides a good representation of these remarkable predecessors to the Victorian Christmas Cake, which replaced the Twelfth Cake's role by the 1860s.