Oysters, éclairs and plenty of booze: Tasting the Titanic menu — last meal ondoomed ship reborn

What do you want for your last meal on earth?

How about a 10-course meal including oysters, poached salmon, filet mignon, pâté de foie gras, Waldorf pudding and vanilla éclairs? All served on hand-painted china plates with a different wine for each course?

That’s what the first-class passengers aboard RMS Titanic ate the night of April 14, 1912, hours before the wonder ship sank into its icy Atlantic grave, taking an estimated 1,500 people with it.

Now you can see the menus, china and silver pieces yourself for the next six months at the Houston Museum of Natural Science’s new exhibit, Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition. The food-related pieces are just some artifacts included among the 250 items recovered from the ship’s debris field.

“The White Star Line wanted Titanic to be the grandest, most luxurious ship afloat,” says Theresa Nelson of Premier Exhibitions, Inc., which tours the exhibit. And that luxury included the food.

Chefs and staff of the multiple dining venues were trained in the principles of haute cuisine as codified by the great French chef Auguste Escoffier and there was even a kosher chef onboard. The galleys were outfitted with the latest in culinary equipment and the pantries stocked with the finest ingredients. The food aboard the ship included 75,000 pounds of fresh meat, 40 tons of potatoes, 800 bundles of fresh asparagus, 40,000 fresh eggs and 800 pounds of tea.

And lots and lots of booze. (More on that later.)

“They were prepared to serve 6,000 meals on the maiden voyage,” Nelson says. “When the ship broke apart it was in the area of the kitchens and some of the cookware was still packed in crates. Because of that we’ve been able to recover almost all of the au gratin dishes.”

In the latest issue of Town & Country, Lord Julian Fellowes (creator of Downton Abbey) talked about his new four-part miniseries Titanic, airing on ABC starting April 14. Much like the popular upstairs/downstairs British drama series, Titanic focuses on the stories of both the rich and famous as well as the working class.

“You have peeresses and show biz stars and bankers and great figures of Broadway and the City and then you have an enormous number of the middle-class people traveling in second and working in the expanding markets of the world,” Fellowes said.

But that doesn’t mean the third-class passengers aboard Titanic didn’t eat well.

“White Star realized that the immigrant trade was going to be very important, so they went to great lengths to make sure their accommodations were better than average,” Nelson says. “They ate off plain white China with the White Star logo and their meals were probably better than what they were used to at home.”

In fact the last dinner for these passengers consisted of vegetable soup, roast pork, sage, onions, green peas, boiled potatoes, cabin biscuits (sort of a cracker), fresh bread, plum pudding, sweet sauce and oranges.

“The third-class meal was really what we are used to today,” Nelson says. “The first-class meals were 10-course affairs for the rich of the time.”

Want to try one of the first-class dishes for yourself? Here’s a recipe from Rick Archbold and Dana McCauley’s Last Dinner on the Titanic.

Chicken Lyonnaise Recipe

⅓ cup all-purpose flour
2 tbsp chopped fresh thyme (or 1 tbsp dried)
½ tsp each salt & pepper
6 boneless chicken breasts
1 egg, beaten
3 tbsp vegetable oil
2 onions, thinly sliced
1 clove garlic, minced
⅓ cup white wine
1 cup chicken stock
2 tsp tomato paste
Pinch granulated sugar

In sturdy plastic bag, shake together flour, 1 tablespoon of the thyme (or half if using dried), salt and pepper. One at a time, dip chicken breasts into egg, then shake in flour mixture.

In large deep skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of the vegetable oil over medium-high heat. Place chicken in pan, skin side down. Cook, turning once, for 10 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from skillet and place in 225 degree oven.

Reduce heat to medium; add remaining oil to skillet. Stir in onions, garlic and remaining thyme; cook, stirring often, for five minutes or until onions are translucent. Increase heat to medium-high and continue to cook onions, stirring often, for five minutes or until golden brown.

Add wine to pan; cook, stirring to scrape up any brown bits, for about one minute or until reduced by half. Stir in stock, tomato paste and sugar. Boil for two minutes or until beginning to thicken. Return chicken to pan, turning to coat and cook for five minutes or until juices from chicken run clear. Makes 6 servings.

If you’d rather have someone else do the Titanic cooking, HMNS will be hosting one of its Cultural Feasts on Wednesday, April 11 at 7 p.m. First Class Dining on the Titanic takes place at Charivari in Midtown and features the Titanic’s first-class dinner menu from April 11, 1912. Chef Johann Schuster will adapt the 100-year-old menu to suit modern palates.

Tickets are $108 for non-museum members and $98 for members.

Oh, back to the booze onboard.

Besides the wine and Champagne onboard, Titanic carried 20,000 bottles of beer and stout, 17 cases of cognac, 70 cases of wine and 191 cases of liquor.

“One of the ship’s pastry chefs survived,” Nelson says. “The legend says he broke into the liquor cabinet and the reason he survived in the cold water is because he was drunk.”