Illustration from a menu of the Ichthyophagous Club. Henry Voight Collection of American Menus
Ichthyophagous Club: (New York, 1880 – 1887): Extreme Seafood
Many people like a good cut of salmon or a chilled oyster on the half shell. The Ichthyophagous Club took aquatic eating much farther. Their goal was simple. Eat as many unusual marine creatures as possible to prove that there were many undiscovered species fit for human consumption. They would serve punch and a plate of fish that would test even modern diners. Some fare was considered strange at the time but are on many modern menus. The clubs would serve mussels, salmon, and lobster, which many of us know and love today. But some of the group’s menu items never made it on to the modern palate such as starfish, porpoise steak, and periwinkles.
A pamphlet for a Thirteen Club event. Atlas Obscura.
The Thirteen Club (1890)
New York’s Thirteen Club feared no superstition. Members walked into the dining room under a ladder. They hosted dinners seated at thirteen tables, with exactly thirteen items on the menu. They ate cakes decorated with black cats and had a jolly time smashing mirrors, spilling salt, and undermining superstitions. Their love of thirteen led to efforts to remove the stigma of the number. Members would write to judges to request prisoners not be hung on the thirteenth of the month. And they sat at Table 13 at restaurants and other clubs.
Members of The Explorers Club. via The Explorers Club.
Explorers Club (1904)
New York’s Explorers Club is sounds like one of those clubs that focus on just travel. But they ended up with an intense reputation. It was dedicated to scientific exploration and multidisciplinary research. It is most notorious for their 47th Annual Banquet in 1951 than the actual activities of the club. They famously consumed flesh of a wooly mammoth, a 250,000 year old beast discovered in an Alaskan glacier. But the reality is slightly less jaw-dropping. Yale University scientists found, based on a sample of the leftover meat from that dinner, that guests were actually consuming green sea turtle. As one of the Yale researchers said, “To me, this was a joke that no one got. It’s like a Halloween party where you put your hand in spaghetti, but they tell you it’s brains. In this case, everyone believed it.”
Where did we find this stuff? Here Are Our Sources:
Bompas, G. (1885) Life of Frank Buckland. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
Lord, E. (2010). The Hellfire Clubs: Sex, Satanism and secret societies. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Timbs, J (1872) Club Life of London. London: John Camden Hotten.
Walter, A. (1871). The life and death of the Sublime Society of Beef Steaks. London: Bradbury, Evans.
Ward, E. (1756) A Compleat and Humorous Account Of all the Remarkable Clubs and Societies in the Cities of London and Westminster. London: J.Wren, Bible and Crown.
