Salmonella Sams

During a recent visit to my Grandma Diemer's house here in Orangevale we combed through a box of old family photos. Buried in the stack was a menu from a 1956 United Airlines flight from Chicago to Sacramento.

A menu!

Air travel must have been quite the experience fifty years ago. What struck me about this menu wasn't that there were three courses to choose from (although that was striking), but that there was a concise biography of the chef! I don't remember the details. But imagine how it might have read:

Your chef today is none other than Francois R. Diemer, schooled at the Rosecrans Culinary Institute in Toulouse, France. Following his formal studies, he interned for eight years under renowned Monsieur Jaques Belanger of III Forks, Chicago, and five years under Clayton Anderson at Salmonella Sam's in Paris, Kentucky. The Preferred Choice for today is medallions of veal, served on a bed of couscous with fresh...

Today, on a flight, consider yourself extraordinarily fortunate if you can score a bag of chips (processed in a facility that also processes tree nuts, peanuts, and/or wheat).

It's amazing not only the sea-change in food service 5 miles above the earth, but also that my Grandma found it worthwhile to save such a thing from a half century ago. It was a big deal. You can see where I'm going with this...what item of today would you (want to) save for your great-granddaughter to marvel at in 2058? A Northwest electronic ticket stub between Minneapolis and Columbus?