Please be seated for your dinner service on board the Orient Line’s S.S. Orcades menú for Thursday 19th September, 1957. On this night the table menú looks a little topsy-turvy or perhaps considered a flipover menú for those seated at the table, wishing to play with their menus.
Lamb’s menú displays the upside down-ness also known as “inversion illusions” where the invertive derivative comes from the Latin verb ‘invertere’, which means ’to reverse’ or ‘to flip over’. Despite its entertaining and interactive menú, foodies may be interested in the menú suggestions recommended by the liner’s chef for this particular night’s repast, which includes:
Soup de jour: Creme Montespan
Entree: Braised lamb’s sweetbreads Bonne-Maman
Main: Grilled fillet of Dover sole with parsley butter or,
Roast dairy-fed pork served with sage and onion with apple sauce
Dessert: Chocolate nut sundae.
Wine by the glass includes:
Burgundy Les Abbesses, Cote de Beane Villages (Buchard Aines,) 1953
Born on 15 April, 1907, the menú designer was Lynton Lamb who was an English artist, designer, author, lithographer and illustrator who was notable for his architectural decorations and postage stamp designs.
The son of the Reverend Frederick Lamb in Nizambabad, India, Lynton grew up in London and was educated at Kingswood School, Bath, Somerset. He then worked in an Estate Agents office and attended night school at Camberwell School of Art before studying art full time at the Central School of Arts and Crafts. From 1930 he was employed at the Oxford University Press designing book jackets.
- He exhibited works at the Festival of Britain in 1951 and designed the binding of the Bible used at the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
- In 1953/54 he designed the Queen Elizabeth II Castle series high-value definitive postage stamp issue which featured views of four castles in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland framed by an old stone wall later nicknamed the ‘broken grotto.’ This series received the International Philatelic Art Society Award for their design in 1960.
- Lamb was head of lithography at the Royal College of Art and Slade School of Fine Art and was named ‘Royal Designer to Industry‘ in 1974.
- He lived in retirement in Sandon, Essex where he died aged 70, on the 4th September, 1977.
Lamb’s menú was produced for the evening meal on board the S.S. Orcades, to help celebrate the cruise ship’s crossing of the Equator and as we all know, what is observed on one side of the equator is reversed on the other – thus one needs to invert or flip-over the menú during this transition to fully appreciate this great equatorial experience.
Bon voyage et bon appetit!
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