Save Ancient Menus

Help the New York Public Library by transcribing our historical restaurant menus, dish by dish, so that they can be searched by what people were eating back in the day. It’s a big job so we need your help!

How do I get started? Just go to the New York Public Library website and start transcribing right now.  

How much time will this take? This is a low time commitment. Spend as much time as you want, one hour or many. You will be helping these national treasures to be searchable and discoverable by all!

How do I expand this narrative arc? If cooking or restaurants are in your narrative arc, consider building on this interest with one of the following:

• Take a cooking course at the Culinary Institutes of America or elsewhere.

• Work in a restaurant In any capacity.

• Organize a cooking or cookie making class at senior or youth group. You can also use your school facilities (with permission) to regularly bake cookie batches and donate them to food banks and homeless shelters.

• Gather recipes from seniors at a senior shelter and publish a cookbook based on their family recipes.

• Take a family oral history and publish your own family’s cookbook based on your culture and family traditions.

Hot Tip: Completing a cooking course is a great start, but the real impact will be greater if you lead your own impact project such as regularly baking cookies for food banks and homeless shelters or publishing a cookbook of seniors’ recipes.