LLU procures collection of rare Sanitarium menus
This menu from Christmas, 1913, is just one example from the collection of menus that was procured last month.
It’s been said that anything under the sun can be found on eBay. Michael Campbell, MA, interim chair of the department of archives & special collections of the Loma Linda University Libraries, certainly found this to be true last month. While searching through the infamous online auction site, Mr. Campbell discovered a rare collection of Loma Linda Sanitarium menus.
Previously, the University had a series of menus dating back to 1919, but this new collection of 25 menus dates from as early as 1913—thus helping to push the department’s collection of historic menus back to within the first decade of this institution’s history.
“While these ephemera do not shed light on any major historical event or person, it does give a glimpse about what life was like during the first 50 years of this institution’s history or at least what you might have had to eat,” says Mr. Campbell. “They also give insight about the simple elegance early Sanitarium workers took in the care and preparation of campus events.”
According to Mr. Campbell, the menus also illustrate the fine work of those who printed the programs at the College Press.
Patients partake in a meal in the Sanitarium dining hall in 1913.
uo;Christmas Menu” for 1913, the earliest in the collection, is illustrative of the rest of the menus. It has several verses such as: “May your days be as fair as the sunlit sky, and your heart free from care as the pumpkin pie!” In addition to dessert, for those who partook of this meal, they had a choice of two soups (cream tomato or vegetable consommé), several relishes, and entrees that included cereal nut roast with cranberry sauce and pecan nut croquettes.
“From these menus, it’s clear that a vegetarian diet could be far from bland!” says Mr. Campbell.
Desserts included a variety of fruits, and a choice of loaf cake, pumpkin pie, apple pie, plum pudding, and ice cream. On other parts of the program important values are prominently placed: grace, a clear conscience, kindness, good cheer, charity served with discretion, peace, love, and truth.
The newly acquired menus will be on display on the third floor of the Del E. Webb Memorial Library through April 13. Historic pictures of early meals and original Loma Linda Sanitarium dishes will also be on display.
By Dustin Jones