A menu is never just a menu. If you visited Van’s Louisiana Barbecue in 1942, you weren’t just getting pork spareribs and sliced beef loin, you were getting a lesson in shifting neighborhood demographics, cross-cultural food communication, wartime rationing, and anti-Japanese xenophobia. Van’s catered mainly to African Americans who had recently traded the South for South Los Angeles, charging extra for warmed-up coffee on a stock advertising menu card for the Mexican brewery Carta Blanca. A watercolor of a Mexican bullfight donned its cover, and inside diners learned that the Southern California Restaurant Association had called for an end to “special dinner combinations” to reduce wartime food waste. And for dessert, a reminder: “War is War! Every Defense Stamp That You Buy Pays The Postage To Send a Jap To Hell!”
To read more about the intersection of design + food, buy a copy of Observer Quarterly Number 3.
