"Famous Chicken Inn" menu from 1939 New York World's Fair

That poor chicken being clasped by a hand does not look happy. It's not clear to me how that somewhat-violent image would make a person excited about eating once-living birds. 

Anyway ... this historic artifact is a menu for the "Famous Chicken Inn" at the 1939 New York World's Fair Amusement Center. We know it's 1939 and not 1964 because of the food and beverage prices, the reference to Bird in Hand restaurant at 711 Seventh Avenue in New York City's Times Square and a tiny piece of attached paper that references the Parachute Jump (I wrote about a postcard involving this attraction in 2016).

The featured item is milk-fed Southern Fried Chicken, with "all the trimmins," consisting of cole slaw, potatoes, rolls and butter. Cost: 65 cents! That's the equivalent of about 15 dollars today, adjusted for inflation. So it seems like a pretty fair price, especially given that prices at fairs tend to be a bit inflated.

Here's a sampling of some other prices from the menu:

• Renault champagne cocktail, 35 cents
• Individual bottle of Renault sauterne or brandy, 50 cents
• Chicken soup with noodles, 15 cents
• Chicken liver with onions (or mushrooms), 50 cents
• Tomato juice, 15 cents
• Ham sandwich, 20 cents
• French fries, 15 cents
• Chicken platter (cold), 75 cents
• Plain cake, 10 cents
• Ice cream, 15 cents
• Coffee with cream, 10 cents (though a red stamp in the margins indicates "iced tea or coffee, 15 cents")
• Edelbrau & Goldenrod beer on draught, 10 cents

Pasted to the back of the menu is a separate typewritten and mimeographed sheet with the Famous Chicken Inn special platters, which cost 35 cents and thus looked like pretty good bargain. They included:

• Fried filet of sole, tartar sauce, carrots and peas, mashed potatoes
• Beef paprika goulash, spaghetti
• Macaroni and ham au gratin, string beans
• Creamed chicken and mushrooms, string beans, mashed potatos
• Chopped tenderloin steak, smothered with onions, carrots and peas, mashed pot.
• Chicken chow mein, rice and noodles
• Chicken giblets, mashed potatos, carrots and peas
• Spaghetti and meat balls
• Vegetable dinner
• Famous chicken salad
• Ham and potatoe salad

And you could finish it off with a slice of chocolate cake for 15 cents!

Related posts (some of which were written before I stopped eating meat)

• Old postcard: "The World's Most Famous Chicken Dish"
• Swift's Premium, Meat power and two fried chicken recipes
• Celebrate Papergreat's 400th post with a gallery of chickens
• Celebrating Papergreat's 600th post with chickens, past and present
• Mystery RPPC: Feeding chickens
• Mystery RPPC: Feeding chickens (Chapter 2)