hobby hunger

"IT'S A hobby that has got out of hand," explains Dave Marriott walking into the office at his home in Farnham, Surrey, which houses more than 12,000 original menus. Marriott, a chef-lecturer at Guildford College, has an insatiable appetite for collecting menus.

His office is a catering hall of fame. A signed photograph of Auguste Escoffier, an 1876 menu from the original Langham Hotel and a menu from Caux trois Fräres, Provence, claimed to be the second oldest restaurant in the world, are just a few examples of the catering memorabilia hanging side by side on the wall. Cookery books and filing cabinets line the room.

Notable menus in his collection include the 1900 Christmas menu from the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Honolulu, painted on bamboo; a menu from an 1874 voyage on the HMS Repulse, where Rear Admiral The Honorable Arthur Cochran, Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific, ate Italian soup, followed by baked fish, roast leg of lamb and custard pudding; and another dated 19 January 1943 from an English chef who cooked for higher ranking prisoners of war at a Japanese camp.

The most recent edition to his collection came from Pat Watmore, a former colleague of Marriott's, now a director at the Carlton Inter-Continental, Cannes. Watmore sent Marriott 20 menus, mostly from recent events. One of the menus, however, from Restaurant Larue, was dated August 1910. "It's rare and much appreciated," says Marriott.

"This typifies what people all over the world are doing for me. I could never afford to buy these menus."

One of Marriott's most intriguing menus, complete with an unusual story that embellishes it, is claimed to be Edward VII's last meal (6 May 1920, Buckingham Palace). "When Edward VII was on his death bed," explains Marriott, "his wife, Alexandra, allowed his mistress, Alice Keppel, to take him a meal prepared by the head chef."

The King died hours after the meal, although second chef Gabriel Tschumi had coincidentally kept the menu after clearing away the tray from the King's room.

In the 1950s, Marriott's path crossed with the then elderly Tschumi. Interested in his hobby, Tschumi told Marriott about the Edward VII menu and agreed to donate it to his collection. "A lot of my menus are like that - they're one-offs."

Incidentally, Edward VII's last meal consisted of three courses: consommé followed by sole souchet (poached sole) and then Devonshire junket with a strawberry sauce.

"Every menu has a story behind it," says Marriott, pointing to two filing cabinets full of background information. "But who is keeping track of what is happening nowadays?" he asks. "Most menus are more than 40-years-old, but I also desperately want to preserve unusual menus or those from special occasions dating from the 1950s onwards."

Marriott has divided his collection into 90 categories, spanning more than 200 years. Besides Royal functions and dinners in honour of various admirals, it includes menus from leading hotels (for example the Ritz and the Savoy), heads of state functions, private houses, rotary clubs, cruise liners, special flights, sports personalities' dinners, menus cooked by the Army Catering Corps, and menus from important chefs such as Anton‹n Caràme, Escoffier, Prosper Montagné, Anton Mosimann, and the Roux brothers.

So how did a 56-year-old chef-lecturer come to develop such a passion for this unusual hobby, which he admits has caused more than a cross word between him and his wife?

As a part-time student at Westminster College, Marriott disputed the origins of mayonnaise with a lecturer. "He insisted it was from Mah¢n in Menorca, but I was sure I'd read somewhere it wasn't. I set about proving him wrong."

During his research, Marriott started collecting menus from manuscripts and books at the British Museum. He was so intrigued by the sheer range of menu content and design his hobby quickly took off.

Throughout a three-year apprenticeship as a baker/confectioner at a hotel in Bedford and a spell as a pastry chef, he continued collecting menus. In March 1959, Marriott was called up to do National Service.

"The services provided me with a great source of menus. I got involved in many Royal functions and by travelling to the USA, Singapore, South America and Europe, I had access to auction houses all over the world and spent a large proportion of my wages adding to my menu collection."

After leaving the army, Marriott joined event caterers, Paine & Gunter. "I would have worked solely for menus if I had known then that I was going to come across such wonderful function menus."

Nowadays, most of Marriott's menus come from various women's clubs and charity groups. "The ladies often have menus from when their grandmothers were cooks in various households," explains Marriott. "If I think the menus have a particular value I will tell them. When they realise that I'm not a dealer, they're happy to leave them with me. I like to think of the menus as being entrusted with me."

Having taught for 11 years, most of Marriott's modern menus come from former students. "Imagine how many students I have taught - they now send me menus from all over the world."

For chefs researching menus or just seeking inspiration, Marriott is happy to give them access to his files. "A lot of professional chefs use my menus for research," says Marriott. He points to a letter from Anton Mosimann, thanking him for his assistance. Other frequent users include Pat Watmore in Cannes, who needed menu suggestions when he staged a Burns Night dinner for Scots living in the South of France earlier this year.

There is clearly a great commercial opportunity here to sell or hire menus, but Marriott is adamant his collection will not be treated in this way. "I love what I do. The day I start charging people for menus is the day it will lose its magic."

So who will inherit the collection when Marriott has gone to that great kitchen in the sky? "I would like to see it displayed in a culinary museum in this country. Perhaps it is something I can work on. It would be criminal to break up my collection of 30 years."

And what happened to the dispute from his college days about the origins of mayonnaise?

Marriott researched the history of mayonnaise so thoroughly that he has, over the years, written a manuscript listing dish definitions and origins. If he finds a publisher, you too could discover the real origin of mayonnaise. n

lIf you would like to contribute old or new menus to Marriott's collection, please send them to Dave Marriott, c/o The catering department, Guildford College of Further and Higher Education, Stoke Park, Guildford, Surrey GU1 1EZ.