Dining Aboard

[monica e. hall]

\iSalut, mon brave!\i
Well now you see, Bob, the mettle of the diligent researcher. If at first you don't get an answer, keep pegging away. I'm impressed you recall my first mild enquiry - which I vaguely recall too, although time has intervened, not to mention regular refreshment, some of which may have been chateau-bottled - but I digress. Here is one of the references:
The provisions: Titanic Voices (Hisplop, Forsyth, Jemima)
and the suggestion about the duration of same? Well, it's a casual sentence in a book, and right this minute I can't find it. But it caught my eye, and was in close juxtaposition to a sentence concerning the number of eggs that sank - 30,000 taken on board according to ANTR - that can't possibly have been for a single westward voyage? 10 eggs a day per person? No wonder there were copious quantities of Black Draught etc. on board....

 

[Donald J A Smith]

When Bob wrote: "as a very rough guide" ["£4.50"]", I was already worried whether my own calculation - of '£2.10' - could reasonably accommodate the presence of 'Third Class' passengers. Perhaps, because so very much was apparently paid by them for a one-way passage and so extravagant an amount paid - even by the Astor/Ryerson or Duff-Gordan parties! - for 'Poland Water', a deeper ET discussion (and off on a thread of its own) might prove as interesting as Bob's reply. "So, now: What's that in real money?"

 

[Bob Godfrey]

George, one of the traditional uses for a serving trolley was to bring a joint of meat to the table, with the (uncarved) joint resting on a heated and covered chafing dish. Does that sound like it?

Jeremy, I heard that back in 1942 the silver trolley from the Grill Room at the Raffles Hotel was buried to avoid capture by the enemy, but was later restored to its former glory and is still in use. Just take a minute to nip over there and check that out, would you?

 

[George Pastarmatzis]

Exactly Bob! Thank you for clearing that up for me!

 

[Bob Godfrey]

Don, there are a number of posts which address the issue of comparative prices and/or profits, but I think they're scattered about in several threads - the search engine might locate them. There's also an article on ticket revenues which might be of interest. As far as profits are concerned (1st v 3rd Class) it is of course the profit margins that count, not the prices. 1st Class travel was expensive, but so were the costs involved. Typically, one 1st Class passenger paid about the same as four 3rd Class passengers, but I reckon the differential in costs was a lot higher than the difference in ticket prices. In other words, the 3rd Class tickets generally carried the highest profit margins.

 

[Bob Godfrey]

Ok, Monica, back to our favourite subject. White Star's main supplier provided 15,000 bottles of beer, but maybe that doesn't include the stock of the A La Carte Restaurant, which operated as a concession and did its own accounting - I've seen a quoted figure of 20,000 bottles in total, but that's not a certainty. It's possible there was also a supply of keg beer for 3rd Class consumption, but I can't recall seeing any mention of this, so let's go with 15,000 bottles. Certainly the crew had no (official) access to it. Eliminate also the children, the mothers of young children, the fathers who have conserved every penny to get their families to the New World, and there aren't going to be too many heavy drinkers to drain the stock. Add to that the fact that neither of us were on board, and the supply seems adequate. Clearly White Star knew from experience what was needed, as they couldn't afford to run out of the amber fluid - four Webleys would have been totally inadequate to quell the resulting mutiny.

 

[Donald J A Smith]

My own 'thirst' - for every factual, fun-frothed draught of information from Bob - is unquenchable.

 

[monica e. hall]

Inspired by the example of Andy Dalziel on TV, had another look and, yes if the booze is only for a one-way trip, it is more than adequate if a bit unbalanced to my mind:
If 70% of all men drink beer = 4 bottles a day
Say 400 wine drinkers in 1st & 2nd class = 2 glasses a day
If there are 300 dedicated spirit drinkers in 1st & 2nd, they have to stagger their way though about 12 shots of spirits a day, and they'd be pretty stiff ones too, as there were only 1200 bottles of minerals aboard. However, they'd need those maybe to accompany the 3 Havanas a day that seem to have been provided for each man in 1st & 2nd. Smoking rooms must have been busy, that's 1000 cigars a day. If you halve the amounts, on the assumption that it was to cater for the return trip as well, then 1st & 2nd men might have sobered up a bit, but the wine ration would seem a bit stingy given all that fine dining. I can't believe I've just done these ridiculous calculations. Must try to get a grip.
(ps got my egg calculations wrong - it's about 20 eggs for everyone for the trip, which makes more sense.)

 

[Bob Godfrey]

Monica, you really shouldn't judge others by your own standards. We all know you have been known to demolish 14 pints on a good night, but most of us guys can't compete. The actual consumption of beer in the UK in 1912 was an average 0.6 pints per day per man, woman and child in the population.

If we assume that the population on board Titanic was made up of a roughly similar mix of gender, age and social class (though it probably wasn't!), then 3 pints per passenger would be sufficient to maintain the normal level of drinking from Southampton to New York. That amounts to less than 4000 bottles. Add the return run and we still need less than 8000 bottles. Even allowing much leeway for variations in cultural backgrounds, age and gender compared with the UK population, plus the possible effects of a party atmosphere in 3rd Class, 15,000 bottles ought to have allowed a good reserve to meet the demand. Now, wanna go to a real party?

 

[Jeremy Lee]

Bob, the buried silver trolley story you heard is true, it was a magnificent silver roast beef trolley from the Elizabethan Grill and it was buried in the Palm Court as the Japs were going to the hotel for dinner that night!

There were a few trolleys used for serving in the Grill when I went down there this morning, so I don't know which one is it. But its true, I have also read that it is still in service.

 

[Shelley Dziedzic]

Little late arriving on this one- yes- it is called a silver domed trolley. I had the pleasure of seeing these in that famous carvery in the Strand, Simpson's. The Savoy still has them too and they are primarily for roasts-got a photo somewhere....Mrs. Beeton's has an illustration.

 

[Bob Godfrey]

Thanks, Jeremy - good to have confirmation from the man on the spot!

 

[monica e. hall]

"And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew."
Bob, how DO you know such things? Anyway, passing over the gross calumny that I can match William Hague, pint for pint, I concede the argument, faced with such a battery of statistics.
"Can we be expecting him anytime soon?" "Not so long as the cigars and brandy hold out". Jack could have done her in oils ....

 

[Jeremy Lee]

>>The person that ran the restaurant, was it run by an independent company like the Ritz on the German liners, or was it White Star but employed 'outside' people?<<

As redirected by Bob, but anyway I have found that out - it was ran by Gatti.

 

[Bob Godfrey]

A few more statistics for you, Monica. Bearing in mind the large proportion of Americans in the Cabin Classes, it's notable that about 80% of Edwardian American men smoked at least one cigar a day, but a lot of them would have smoked only one per day - after dinner, of course. The actual per capita consumption figure for 1912 was less then 2 cigars per week. That means (very roughly) that about 5,000 would suffice for Titanic's voyage to New York and back, and the stock of 8,000 allowed a comfortable reserve.

Titanic also carried a stock of cigarettes and cut tobacco, but I don't know if the quantities are on record. In 1912 the demand for manufactured ciggies was about to take off but still relatively small, while the weight of cut tobacco sold for pipes and roll-ups would have been about equal to that of the cigars. I don't know whether White Star made any provision for the demand for chewing tobacco, which was still the biggest market. Any spitoons in the debris field? Chawing wouldn't have been encouraged in the 1st Class saloon, I suspect!

As for the wine supply, again the Restaurant had its own stock and this might not be included in the generally quoted figure of 1500 bottles in the White Star inventory. But some part of that supply might have been cheap plonk for the 3rd Class contingent, many of whom came from countries where wine rather than beer was favoured at all levels of society. Certainly there would be a likely demand for spirits as well as beer from the 3rd Class Bar, but I don't know whether any such demands were catered for. Does anybody know whether wines and spirits were available to 3rd Class passengers, and what, if anything stronger than water, could be obtained in the dining rooms?