Rare Titanic dinner menu reveals what the wealthiest passengers ate before tragedy

Menu recently sold at auction for more than $100,000

The Titanic will forever be remembered as the ship that brought tragedy upon over 1,000 people when it crashed into an iceberg and then sunk in the early hours of 15 April 1912.

But it is easy to forget the luxurious facilities the voyage had to offer the upper-class travellers as they set sail to New York City.

A Titanic rare dinner menu that recently sold for more than $100,000 has shed light on the lavish experience that those who could afford first-class enjoyed before catastrophe struck.

The menu is dated 11 April 1912, days before the ship would meet its fate in the cold waters of the North Atlantic Ocean.

This water-stained menu is currently thought to be the only one known to have survived from that particular evening and was put up for auction by Henry Aldrige & Sons Ltd in Wiltshire, UK.

The menu offers an extravagant set of courses for first-class diners, including oysters, lamb, and mallard duck to feast upon.

“It is a remarkable survivor from the most famous ocean liner of all time,” said the auction house, which believes it’s an important snapshot into the illustrious lives the upper class led and the quality of marine hospitality.

The elaborate meal starts off with a variety of Hors d’oeuvres and oysters, followed by a Consomme renaissance (a chicken broth with carrots) and creme d’asperges (a pureed asparagus soup).

The fish course was next, which consisted of salmon with a hollandaise sauce and white bait.

Onto the meat courses, starting with tournados of beef a la victoria (a tenderloin beef dish) and squab a la Godard (a pigeon dish).

Next, lamb, chicken, and beef were served with a variety of sources. Green peas, pureed parsnips, boiled rice and new potatoes accompanied the indulgent main courses.

The first-class dinner menu has sold for over $80,000 ( Henry Aldridge & Son/PA)

The feast did not end there, with mallard duck in a port wine source and salad supplied to finish off the savoury section, then onto a variety of desserts such as victoria pudding, apricots bourdaloue (a tart), petits mocka and French ice cream.

Such extravagant delicacies were thought to have been eaten by the likes of millionaires JJ Astor, Benjamin Guggenheim, Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon and the ‘Unsinkable’ Molly Brown, all of whom embarked on the ill-fated voyage.

A few other Titanic menus dated on the disastrous night that claimed over 1,500 lives are known to have survived, stashed in the pockets of passengers.

Yet, this menu is thought to be the only one known to exist from 11 April, a day after the ship embarked on its journey from Queenstown (now Cobh), Ireland, and four days before the Titanic struck the iceberg, according to the auction house.

While it is not known how the menu survived, the document was found in the possession of historian Len Stevenson, who was from Nova Scotia, Canada, where bodies of the Titanic victims were taken after the catastrophe.

Stevenson died in 2017, but his daughter, Mary Anita, only found the menu recently when she was sorting through his belongings.

Unfortunately, it is not known how the historian came across the menu, but the water stain marks and Mr Stevenson’s link to Nova Scotia indicate that it may have been recovered from the body of a victim.

The menu sold on Saturday for around £84,000, along with other Titanic-recovered items that fetched even higher asking prices.

A Swiss-made pocket watch owned by and recovered from second-class Titanic passenger Sinai Kantor sold for £97,000, and a tartan deck blanket from first-class went for £96,000.