Not for the first time, I had a lovely time recently because of strange things donated to our Oxfam bookshop.

Who would, I ask myself, keep the breakfast menus from a 1933 cruise and then keep them long enough to be donated to an Oxfam shop in Petersfield in 2023.

(Wait dear reader and you will find out what cruisers had on offer for breakfast in 1933.)

Apparently:

The SS Mongolia was a steam turbine-driven twin-screw passenger-and-cargo ocean liner launched in 1922 for the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O) for service from the United Kingdom to Australia. 

Later in P&O service she sailed for New Zealand, and in 1938 she was chartered to a P&O subsidiary, the New Zealand Shipping Company, as SS Rimutaka.

In 1950 she was sold to become the SS Europa, carrying immigrants to the United States from Europe; later, she became a Bahamas cruise ship, the SS Nassau. Its final incarnation was under a Mexican flag as a Los Angeles to Acapulco cruise liner, SS Acapulco, making her the only ocean liner to ever fly the Mexican flag. The ship was scrapped in 1964.

Thank you (again) Wikipedia.

Now that was all interesting stuff, but there is more:

Notable incidents included a collision on 16 July 1933 with the tanker British Venture and a breakwater in Copenhagen, followed by running aground.’

Our breakfast menus are from late June 1933 and despite Wikipedia saying she was sailing to Australia or New Zealand at that time, she was in fact sailing around Denmark and Norway (and btw she had also done trips to Japan and China.)

So, it is at least possible that our cruisers who kept their breakfast menus, were on board when she went aground – or they had disembarked,and felt not little relieved.

Now, what were they eating?

I am an omelette fan but an ‘omelet’ with added fried eggs? Golden syrup on your toast?

What is broiled Wiltshire bacon? Mmm…grilled maybe and maybe that means they had an American ‘audience’.

You do get the option of stewed fruit – but always with rice.

Sadly we only have one dinner menu and I am dithering between choosing the fish, lamb or Surrey fowl.

Now, I am a potato lover but even I can see that they took on board a lot, a lot, of potatoes, given they appear at breakfast and in several guises for dinner – panaches is a potato stew and you get an option of baked and boiled ones too.

Who knows why these little gastronomic treats ended up in our shop but it is culinary and cruising delight to have seen them.