Image Of The Month - June 2004
1958 Dinner Menu from the S.S. President Hoover
This beautiful menu lists the dinner choices for Wednesday, February 26, 1958, on the S.S. President Hoover cruise ship en route to Manila. Among the food choices is "chilled jellied essence of tomato" (??). The menu cover was illustrated by San Franciscan, Don Clever, for the American President Lines cruises. There was a series of five menus, including this one and other similarly themed images featuring females and iconography for Japan, the Phillippines, Hong Kong, and one more that I couldn't track down. Look below for a sample of another one of these from the series. This is the Japan cover, and it was used for the May 1958 trip en route to Yokohama.
Speaking of illustrator Don Clever, another famous work of his is the menu for the San Mateo, CA restaurant, The LANAI. Sadly this establishment no longer exists, but some of the other buildings remain in the original plaza that it was part of, including (most of) the Villa hotel. Here is the beautiful illustration for The LANAI dinner menu.
