The Harvey House Cookbook Memories of Dining Along the
Santa Fe Railroad 2nd Edition
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The Harvey House Cookbook
Memories of Dining Along the Santa Fe
Railroad
George H. Foster and Peter C. Weiglin
Copyright © 1992 by George H. Foster and Peter C. Weiglin
First Taylor Trade Publishing edition 2006
Originally published in 1992 by Longstreet Press, Inc.
This Taylor Trade Publishing paperback edition of The Harvey House Cookbook is an original
publication. It is published by arrangement with the author.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or
mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission
from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.
Published by Taylor Trade Publishing
An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
Distributed by NATIONAL BOOK NETWORK
The Longstreet Press edition of this book was previously catalogued by the Library of Congress as
follows:
The Harvey House cookbook : memories of dining along the Santa Fe Railroad / by George H. Foster
and Peter C. Weiglin.
p. cm.
Includes index.
1. Harvey, Fred. 2. Fred Harvey (Firm)—History. 3. Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad
Company. 4. Cookery, American. 5. Railroad stations—Food service—United States. I. Title
TX715.F74 1992
641.5973—dc20 91-77187
ISBN-13: 978-1-58979-321-7 (alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-58979-321-8 (alk. paper)
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National
Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO
Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America.
To Kurt Peter Cronheim, healer
and
To a Certain Lady from Cincinnati; had she lived in that time and been a
Harvey Girl, the West would have been an even better place to live.
Contents
Preface
CHAPTER 1. IN SEARCH OF A DECENT MEAL
Appetizers
CHAPTER 2. FRED HARVEY
Soups
CHAPTER 3. THE FIRST HARVEY HOUSES
Salads
CHAPTER 4. THE HARVEY SYSTEM
Entrées
Beef
Veal
Pork
Lamb
Poultry
Seafood
Rabbit
CHAPTER 5. THE HARVEY GIRLS
Rice and Pasta
Vegetables
CHAPTER 6. MONTEZUMA AND MORE
Desserts
CHAPTER 7. THE RESORT HOTELS
Breads & Muffins
CHAPTER 8. RESTAURANTS ON WHEELS
Sandwiches
CHAPTER 9. THE GREAT TERMINALS
Breakfasts
CHAPTER 10. CHANGE OF FOCUS
Sauces
Miscellaneous
Index
Preface
In this cookbook you will find two levels of “cooking experience,” two
levels of detail in the instructions. We have included recipes from two major
time periods—from the column “In Harvey Service” in the Santa Fe
Railroad magazine, circa 1910–13, and from the Fred Harvey employee
magazine, Hospitality, published in the 1940s and 1950s. Readers will
notice the difference in style, instructions, and use of ingredients between
the two publications.
In a modern cookbook, recipes are precise, almost clinical, sometimes
carried down to the level of grams and globules. But The Harvey House
Cookbook is, by definition, not a modern cookbook, and we therefore
assume that readers bring a certain level of understanding to the process.
The older works, on which ours is modeled, often simply listed the
ingredients for a sauce or garnish, for example, taking for granted that the
chef knew what to do with them. We have, however, updated some
references and names that have been lost in the mists of time.
We must acknowledge a little volume that was a most valuable
translation tool from past to present names and ingredients. Entitled A
Selection of Dishes and the Chef’s Reminder (A High Class Culinary Text
Book) (10th ed., 1909), a 220-page, gold-stamped vest pocket book bound
in red leather, it was found, dust covered and forgotten, in the (long-closed)
Harvey restaurant area of the Santa Fe station at Seligman, Arizona, a
number of years ago. The book was a godsend, just as it must have been for
chefs since its first publication in 1896. One example: an old Harvey recipe
called for “Coxcomb,” an item not widely known today. The old Chef’s
Reminder provided the answer; coxcomb (Fr. crête du coq) is the red comb
of a rooster, crushed and used as a food coloring in the days before a
rainbow of commercial colorings became available everywhere.
We are indebted to the great staff at the Kansas State Historical Society
in Topeka, with special thanks to Connie Mennenger, curator of the Santa
Fe Collection, and the staff of the photo section. Thanks also to Darrell D.
Garwood, Cynthia Shively, and Margaret B. Knight, librarian.
We are grateful to Nedra Ross Moore, who shared the memories she has
collected of former Harvey Girls in her native Kansas. Jere L. Krakow,
historian by profession, who has a personal interest in Fred Harvey and is
working on a comprehensive history of the Fred Harvey Organization, was
kind enough to read the book in manuscript form. The help, counsel, and
sharing of Ray Verr has been invaluable in the quest for Harvey collectibles.
Thanks also to Mario Nick Klimiades, librarian and archivist of the Heard
Museum; the Special Collections Department of the University of Arizona,
Dr. Louis Hieb, department head, and Christine Leischow, library specialist;
Margaret Bret-Harte, librarian, and her staff of the Arizona Historical
Society; Michelle Gray of the Interlibrary Loan Department of the Tucson
Public Library; and Michael A. Martin of the Santa Fe Railway. All of these
good folks aided with the production of this volume.
The
Harvey House
Cookbook
CHAPTER ONE
In Search of a Decent Meal
No one individual did more to civilize the American West than
Frederick Henry Harvey.
That plain and unequivocal statement might be easily dismissed in this
era of hyperbole, where the word greatest is used too often by publicists to
mean barely adequate. But Fred Harvey, founder of a hotel and restaurant
chain that stretched from the Great Lakes to the Pacific Ocean, had a
surprisingly strong social impact on the West and its history. This book
hopes to recreate a bit of that history.
Before 1876, it was virtually impossible to get a decent American-style
restaurant meal anywhere between the Mississippi River and the Pacific
Ocean. Neither the ingredients for, nor the skill and equipment to produce,
an outstanding meal were present in any quantity. Meat was in abundance—
buffalo and antelope, for example—but it was quite likely tough. As for the
aging of meat, an evening’s dinner was quite likely to have been still
walking or swimming around at noon.
Open flames, as those in campfires or pits, were the common heat
source. Castiron kitchen ranges did not exist in America until the 1830s,
and their weight and bulk made them prohibitively expensive to transport to
the West. They were therefore exceedingly rare away from seaports until
the railroads offered lower freight tariffs. Even so, the early stoves burned
wood (later coal) and were incapable of maintaining constant temperatures.
Fruits and vegetables were only sporadically available, and what could
be found was of questionable freshness, as refrigeration was unknown.
Immersion in a cool stream or brook would help, but preservation involved
salt and spices rather than cold temperatures. Baking of sourdough biscuits
and similar items was done in portable tin Dutch ovens, as befit a basic
cooking style derived from the pioneer caravan.
The most common early western dish appears to have been stew cooked
in castiron kettles, with a wide and changing variety of ingredients from
place to place and day to day, depending on what had been recently killed
or was otherwise available. It is not difficult to divine how such synonyms
for food as chow, slop, and grub entered the language.
This picture changed, however, as the expanding westward-moving
railroads transformed the economics of transportation. Now, products that
had not been available before the iron horse’s arrival could be shipped more
feasibly. In the late 1860s and early 1870s, railroads were built through the
wild country between the Mississippi River and the advancing frontier. The
first so-called transcontinental railroad line was, of course, the Union
Pacific-Central Pacific route between Omaha and Sacramento, celebrated
for its linkage at Promontory Point, Utah, in May 1869.
Even before the coming of the railroad, the Santa Fe Trail had been an
artery of wagon-borne commerce. In the 1860s that old and well-worn path
became the base for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. Built west
from Topeka, the first line segment of the new steel-rail technology opened
in 1869. By late 1872 the Santa Fe had reached the Colorado border, and by
1878 it had stretched to Albuquerque, New Mexico.
In the next few years, Rock Island and Union Pacific rail lines also
crossed Kansas between Kansas City and Denver, while the Chicago,
Burlington and Quincy operated between Kansas City and Denver (via St.
Joseph, Missouri) through Nebraska, immediately north of the Kansas
border. Travelers thus had a choice of railroads to carry them westward.
Although the railroads reduced the time required for travel, eating
during the trip was nothing less than a harrowing ordeal for the passengers.
A train trip in that era was considerably different from what we came to
expect in later years. For one, there were no dining cars. All trains had to
stop to replenish the locomotive’s water supply (at “tank towns”) or to
change engines about every hundred miles, so eating houses were built at
some of these stops to feed the passengers at the same time. The railroads
participated in this venture to the minimum possible extent; they were in the
railroad business, not the food business. Most often, they leased trackside
space to a local entrepreneur, who provided the food service in whatever
ramshackle structure or tent he could provide. The average length of time
for such stops was twenty minutes, which lent a sense of urgency to the
gastronomic adventure awaiting the passenger.
American folklore is replete with travelers’ tales of indigestible food
(the grisly details of which have no place in a cookbook), hasty and
indifferent service, and grayish “mystery meats” garnished with
unidentifiable frying objects. They also faced exorbitant prices and the
crowding, stampeding, and infighting caused by inadequate space in the
railside establishments.
A traveling artist captured this scene of confusion in a railroad eating house as passengers
scramble to finish their meals before the train departs. (Santa Fe Collections, Kansas State
Historical Society)
Outrage was often added to frustration when the travelers had to pay in
advance; the trains’ departure times often came before any significant
amount of food could be consumed. Indeed, suspicions arose that these
loathsome eateries improved their profit pictures by “touching up” partially
eaten meals left by hastily departing passengers and holding them for the
subsequent delectation of the folks on the next train stopping there. Since
no one had a chance to eat very much (and, in many cases, had no desire to
do so), fatalities at least were rare.
Economists will tell you that this is the inevitable result of monopoly.
When customers have no other choice, the tendency is toward high prices
and poor quality of product and service. In this situation, the time, location,
and duration of the meal stop were controlled by the railroad (for the
convenience of the locomotives, remember); there was a lack of alternate
facilities within range of the train; most passengers would never be seen at
that stop again; and all of the western railroads had essentially the same
level of “service.” It is thus not surprising that railway dining was equated
with misery—both during and after the meal.
The diary of a typical four-day trip on the Santa Fe’s California Limited between Kansas City and
southern California, taken from an 1887 brochure published by the railroad. (Santa Fe
Collections, Kansas State Historical Society)
One man changed those horrifying conditions. As we shall see, by
providing good food and charming service across the region, a transplanted
Englishman named Fred Harvey may well have done more than any other
single person to civilize the American West. Out of the intersection of talent
and opportunity would grow his famous Harvey Houses.
A sample Fred Harvey dinner menu from 1888. The price was 75 cents.
Canapé Danoise
Alfred Schaar, Chef, Dearborn Station, Chicago, Illinois
White Bread
Anchovies
Eggs
Chives
Toast slices of white bread. Butter them. Cover each slice with filet of
anchovies, chopped boiled eggs, and chives. Cut in triangles.
Cheese Straws
A. B. C. Dutcher, Manager of Topeka House, Kansas
1 lb. flour
¾ lb. grated cheese
Yolks of 4 eggs
Salt and pepper
Mix ingredients; salt and pepper to taste. Make into paste, roll out, cut
in thin strips, and bake.
Relish Dish
Nelle Smith, Test Kitchen Supervisor
Green onions
Radishes
Celery hearts
Rolls, corn bread sticks,
or muffins from any mix.
Arrange and serve.
Fruit Cup
Nelle Smith, Test Kitchen Supervisor
Fresh pineapple
Sugar
Strawberries
Remove sharp leaf tips from the pineapple and, using pointed knife, cut
around and remove crown. Then cut crosswise in ¾ inch slices. Cut off the
rind and remove the “eyes.” Cut crosswise and remove the core. Cut the
pineapple into desired size, sprinkle with sugar (brown sugar gives an
added taste), and place in covered dish in refrigerator for at least an hour.
Remove hulls of fresh strawberries and place berries in colander; wash and
drain thoroughly. Slice strawberries, saving enough whole berries to use as
center garni for each fruit cup. Place berries in dish, sprinkle with sugar
(determined by tartness of berry), cover, and chill before serving. Arrange
fruit in chilled sherbet glasses, pouring some juice over fruit.
Guacamole Monterey
Joe Bianchi, Chef, El Tovar, Grand Canyon, Arizona
1 avocado, mashed
1 tomato, chopped fine
1 tablespoon lemon juice
½ teaspoon chopped chives
½ teaspoon salt
Dash pepper
½ cup cottage or cream cheese
2 tablespoons chopped green onions
Dash Worcestershire sauce
Combine all ingredients thoroughly. Chill. Serve on lettuce with peeled,
chilled tomato wedge or use as a dunk mixture. Yields 2⅔ cups. Serves six.
