OP: Hotel Butcher, Garde Manger and Carver

The Hotel Monthly Press, Chicago, 1935. Hardcover. Very Good Minus. 

This 1935 handbook, one of the less common volumes published by The Hotel Monthly Press, is oriented toward butchers and garde mangers, though the emphasis is on the former. Ample black and white illustrations aid instruction through whole animal butchery, meat carving, fish identification, oyster opening, etc. The text itself is practical without being dry, offering thoughtful advice from professionals who know where and how things can go wrong and the most flavorful, economical, and efficient approaches to the craft. Applicable to anyone working in similar environments today.

Perhaps even more engaging, from a historical perspective, are the additional tidbits in the latter portion of the book, such as the laudatory blurb on a “new idea” in refrigeration, which essentially describes a prototypical lowboy with sliding doors on the top. Another outlines the “rules governing waiters in the Palace and Fairmount Hotels” in San Francisco, from room service vs. dining room service to bussing and waiter management.

Our copy is largely clean and unmarked, save for very occasional pencil marks or spots of soiling. The binding is sturdy, and the case shows discoloration, soiling and wear.