A Look at the Titanic’s Menus
What was for dinner on that fateful night?
On the evening of 14 April 1912, as the RMS Titanic steamed westwards into the sunset, her thirteen hundred passengers sat down to dinner. Their voyage was nearing its end, and they expected to be in New York City on 17 April. Of course, for many of them, that fateful dinner would be their last meal.
The Titanic was more than a ship — she was a cross-section of trans-Atlantic Edwardian society, a stratified world which would crumble under the fire of the guns of the First World War. We can learn something about that society from her menus.
Third Class
There were 709 third-class passengers on the Titanic, mostly immigrants from Europe looking to start a new life in the U.S. or Canada. A third-class berth cost £3–8/$15–40, or between $350 and $900 today. Travelling on the Titanic wasn’t cheap, and Europe’s poorest could not afford a ticket. That being said, third-class passengers were well provided for. Their accommodation was cramped, but they were fed solid meals of traditional British fare. For most, the quality and quantity of the food would have been much better than they had…