Today marks 110 years since the sinking of what was thought to be an unsinkable ship. Recognized every year on April 15, Titanic Remembrance Day honors the more than 1,500 people who lost their lives in the early hours of that day.
Though experts still debate the main causes of the maritime catastrophe, we know some details about the voyage. For example, two copies of the first-class dinner menu from April 14 were recovered and preserved. Many restaurants in the United States recreate it in memory of the day.
Below, USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service pairs some of the foods served then with current U.S. agricultural statistics:
The meal started with oysters ($284.9 million in 2018 sales), cream of barley soup (1.9 million acres (PDF, 2.1 MB) of barley harvested in 2021), and poached salmon (the United States had 13 Atlantic salmon farms and two Pacific salmon farms in 2018*).
Proteins served were filet mignon (beef production at 2.25 billion pounds (PDF, 399 KB) in February 2022), chicken (759 million (PDF, 437 KB) broiler-type chicks hatched during February 2022), lamb (9.2 million pounds (PDF, 399 KB) lamb and mutton produced in February 2022), and duck (2.1 million head (PDF, 429 KB) in February 2022) with side dishes of creamed carrots (value of utilized production $831.4 million in 2021) and peas (454 million pounds (PDF, 1.6 MB) in 2021).
The salad course was a cold asparagus vinaigrette (value of utilized asparagus production was $69.7 million (PDF, 1.6 MB) in 2021), and desserts included ice cream (52.3 million gallons (PDF, 523 KB) hard ice cream in February 2022) and peaches (73,000 bearing acres (PDF, 1.4 MB) in 2020) in chartreuse jelly, among other options.
*These farms produce one or more of the following: food-size fish, stockers, fingerlings or fry, broodfish and eggs.
