Blog post one: Historical Food

The dataset I will be covering pertains to historical food items in various diners/restaurants in New York City from the last 20th Century, also known by the collection project name: “What’s on the Menu?.” The reason I chose this dataset is because of a funny reason actually. It was inspired by an episode of the Simpsons, in which Homer Simpson goes on a tour of New Orleans by eating popular dishes at various restaurants. In a similar fashion, I will be taking a tour through 20th century New York City restaurants and diners.

The origin of this datapoint is from The New York City Public Library. The project was originally launched in late April in the year 2011. The end goal of this database is to make a massive collection of transcribed food menus for people to use and look at. It is fueled by enthusiasm, but also has benefits in the historical field, for finding proof for trivia.

The problems in the data arise in the actual collection of data. The only way to obtain any of this information is by finding authentic menus.The project is limited by the scope of the community, and who they can find to contribute to it.

The questions I would explore using this dataset are as follows: how does the price of pizza change over the years, and what common items on menus have now disappeared, if any have at all.

I would use this dataset to compare the menus of the century in the dataset against the menus of another century, say the 21st century. At least in the New York City area, I would see if there are any big changes between the way New Yorkers dined in the past and the way they do now (disregarding the pandemic).