Beer mat = "coaster" for the curious. I was originally thinking a paper tablecloth. It was pretty straightforward to understand via browser translation of the wikipedia article, thanks!

> In some breweries and countries, the beer mat placed on the glass signals to the waiter that the guest does not want to drink any more beer.

Interesting. I’ve always seen this as a signal that a person was stepping away, but coming back. The person would cover it while going to the bathroom, in part so it isn’t as trivial for someone to slip something in their drink. Implying that they intend to keep drinking it once they return.

I’d be interested to know where it means that the guest doesn’t want any more beer.

In the Netherlands that person would be considered an eetpiraat (food pirate) or flessentrekker (bottle puller). Those are terms used in court.

https://uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl/resultaat?zoekterm=Flessen...

https://uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl/resultaat?zoekterm=Eetpira...

One massive change is that there is almost no ethnic food on these menus (unless you include French). I looked at some of the LA menus and there were zero Asian, Mexican, or Italian dishes. It's impossible to imagine today that you could look at a bunch of hotel restaurant menus in LA and not find at least some dishes that were inspired by those cultures.

Navigation was quiet confusing to me on my Macbook as well. If the topic was not so interesting I would have left in complete frustration instead of deciding to fight the interface.

And the other way around too - it sounds like you could have had a very similar dining experience as today. It always amazes me how very little difference there is between past people's lifestyles and ours. I know this on a factual level, but being presented with a tiny peek into the past like this is always very humbling to me.

The first menu I opened had tongue sandwiches and hot beef tea.

So some things have definitely changed!

Unfortunately in Europe printed menus almost entirely disappeared after COVID. Before, leather-clad, elegant, printed menus were commonplace, but nowadays every place just has a QR code.

...or are even in the hands of the same family?

Still pretty common at least in places near where oysters are grown, I think. My guess would be also that tastes changed over time as oyster fisheries were overfished and/or polluted by growing cities. There have been numerous waves of oyster collapse on the US east coast over hundreds of years, and places that once had them in incredible abundance now have none (though efforts to restore them have emerged).

There are a variety of parallels in the history of overfishing where a given seafood that was once abundant was then seen as undesirable and served to servants or prisoners (lobster, salmon), but today is somewhat of an expensive delicacy.

The other interesting one is celery. I read an article a bit ago about how salted celery stalks were popular around the early 1900's with all kinds of heirloom varieties being served. Quite a few of the menus I have clicked on have celery listed as an appetizer...

I would have guessed nutrition, we live an in age of vitamins and fortified foods. You can get a lot of zinc and other metals from clams and oysters.

HN has an 80 character title max length.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40677110