I took a spin through the archives and—lo and behold, I discovered something quite fascinating: today, even the richest among us do not eat Thanksgiving like the rich of 1900. 

Click-through to read Macy Halford on the time Mark Twain tried to move Thanksgiving, and for more on Thanksgiving menus in 1900.

Sex, Figs, Italics: A Visual History of Menus

Food is sex you can talk about, a wise friend said recently. (In Seattle, where cake-baking is the new S. & M., food is also apparently sex you can’t talk about.) And now that Taschen—of the deviant, beautiful, nostalgic books—has published a book called “Menu Design in America” ($59.99), food is sex you can look at.

For your lunchtime reading pleasure: Menu Design, from the Civil War to Chez Panisse