Overview
- Historian Neha Vermani located the digitised menu in the New York Public Library’s collection and shared it on X, driving widespread online coverage.
- The card, dated January 31, 1897, records a dinner at Laxmi Vilas Palace hosted by Sayajirao Gaekwad III in honour of the Maharaja Scindia of Gwalior.
- The courses skew heavily European, listing Potage d’Amandes, Poisson Braisé with mayonnaise, Crème de Volaille aux truffes, Italian-style lamb cutlets and roast partridge, with a lone French-named vegetable curry and rice.
- The NYPL’s large menu digitisation project, reported as encompassing tens of thousands of items in its Rare Books Division, made this Baroda menu publicly accessible.
- Context from palace accounts describes a Gaekwadi tradition of mixing Indian and continental fare, supporting readings of the menu as deliberate culinary fusion.