This Guy Unearthed A Thanksgiving Menu From 70 Years Ago—You Won't Believe The Prices
A traditional Thanksgiving menu doesn't deviate much from the classics. There's the turkey and gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and pumpkin pie. Perhaps there's a different vegetable one year, and a fun salad or dessert.
Well, an unearthed restaurant menu from the 1960s goes to show that not that much has changed in terms of Thanksgiving food (aside from a few interesting sides). But the price? That's a different story.
Reddit user u/AxlCobainVedder posted a vintage Thanksgiving menu for a Long Island Howard Johnson's location in the r/vintageads subreddit. The multi-course Thanksgiving dinner would have set someone back only $2.25 and even less for children under 12, who could eat for $1.50.
Obviously, there's a thing called inflation, which is why you can maybe buy a bag of rolls for that price in 2024. But there's the thing: Using the inflation calculator from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, $2.25 in 1960 is the equivalent of $23.92 today. I'm not sure about portion sizes at Howard Johnson's, but that seems like a great deal for an elaborate Thanksgiving dinner.
The menu starts off with your choice of a chilled fruit cup with sherbet or chilled fruit juice, followed by celery and olives. There's no butternut squash soup, but rather a cream of celery soup with croutons.
Accompanying the turkey is giblet gravy and Cape Cod cranberry sauce. There's mashed potatoes, glace sweet potatoes, buttered peas, mashed turnip, butternut squash, boiled buttered onions (!), sweet mixed pickles, rolls and butter, and Waldorf salad.
For dessert, there's more sherbet—it was the 1960s, after all. Another standout dish is the New England plum pudding. Pie comes with cheese, and you get your choice of pumpkin, apple, or mince pies.
Drop your thoughts on this Thanksgiving menu in the comments. Better yet, do you think you can find a Thanksgiving spread like this today for $23.92?
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