The Berkeley Hotel 建于1870年，位于波士顿新开发的后湾社区伯克利和博伊尔斯顿街的拐角处. Known as The Berkeley House, it was originally a “family hotel,” largely comprised of residential apartments. 它的外观类似于阿灵顿和伯克利之间的博伊尔斯顿(Boylston)的褐石联排别墅, with pediments and a parapet upon the roof. 它还位于后湾所能提供的一切的中心位置:公共花园, Art Square (Copley Square), the Institute of Fine Arts (Museum of Fine Arts), 波士顿和普罗维登斯火车站(后湾站)都在步行距离之内. 波士顿自然历史学会(科学博物馆)和麻省理工学院就在街对面.

In 1900, 酒店买下了隔壁的褐砂石建筑，并进行了一项重大的翻新工程，以扩大伯克利酒店的容量. The Boston Home Journal 1900年5月5日报道说，该旅馆将不再作为家庭旅馆经营. In the 3 November issue, the Journal included further details about the revamped hotel. A large European plan dining room, an American plan dining room, and a bake shop were added to the plans. The hotel would also have electricity throughout the building, which enabled it, among other things, to freeze drinking water in bottles. An advertisement in the same newspaper from 1901 这家酒店被吹捧为“女士们方便的午餐场所”，有单独的男士咖啡厅，桌球一直提供到午夜.

Despite these renovations, the improved hotel was short-lived. On 3 April 1905, the Boston Globe reported that the Berkeley Trust, the hotel’s owners, 计划拆除该建筑，取而代之的是一个新的商业建筑，包括零售商店在一层，销售室在上面. The resulting Beaux-Arts style Berkeley Building, designed by Stephen Codman and Constant Desire Despradelle, still stands today, one of Boston’s most notable architectural gems.

The Menu Ledger

The Berkeley Hotel is not widely remembered today, 但这份菜单分类账让我们得以一窥这家酒店的中心:厨房. On the left-hand pages of the ledger, there are the daily menus for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, 而主菜的价格点在右边. 相同的entre不同的价格点可能反映了欧洲计划之间的区别, 在这种情况下，顾客除了支付房费外，还要支付餐费, and the American plan, where meals are included in the cost of a patron’s stay.

早餐通常包括一个“蛋糕”——很可能是用某种面粉或餐点做成的煎饼, generally wheat, buckwheat, rice, or cornmeal. In addition to the daily cake, there were seafood and meat offerings, the latter typically a sausage, stew, or hash. 周日，这家酒店改变了这一做法，提供波士顿烤豆配黑面包和鳕鱼丸子. 午餐的特色是炖菜和海鲜杂烩，还有各种各样的土豆和绿色蔬菜. Dinner menus were similar, offering meat dishes like roast lamb, smoked beef tongue with spinach, Irish stew with dumplings, filet mignon, and potted pigeons Parisienne, possibly similar to this 1914 recipe 为南太平洋铁路出版的盆栽雏鸽(一种雏鸽). Desserts included strawberry tarts, eclairs, rice puddings, and an assortment of cakes, thanks to the onsite bake shop.

The ledger seemingly captures a creative, and sometimes hurried, level of activity in the hotel kitchen. Menu items are crossed out, 每日菜单的添加或替换看起来就像是用铅笔草草写下来的，因为市场的可用性迫使他们改变了当天的计划, 或者一种意想不到的食材——比如二月份的草莓——突然出现了. On a couple of pages, doodles of a merman 牲畜被画在边缘，这也许是一个做白日梦的厨师的行为. 餐厅的菜肴大多是法式或新英格兰风格的, but there are dishes with Italian, Indian, and West African influences. 后者在酒店经常提供的一种名为费城胡椒锅的特殊汤中表现得最为突出, which was served at both lunch and dinner.

Philadelphia Pepper Pot

Pepper pot soup has its origins in West Africa. 那个地区的奴隶把胡椒罐带到了西印度群岛, where it was adapted to include salted meats, and from there the soup came to Philadelphia, which traded with the West Indies. 这道汤采用了当地og体育平台和蔬菜的常用配方，并根据当地的喜好进行了调整. A recipe for “West Indies Pepper Pot” published in The New Art of Cookery (1792) uses beef brisket, veal, and mutton along with root vegetables, greens, and lobster, 并指示厨师用“辣辣椒”调味.“多年来，随着食谱的不断调整，牛肚和小牛肉被更频繁地使用. Beginning in the early 1800s, 胡椒锅是由自由的黑人妇女烹饪并作为街头食品出售的, as seen in an 1811 painting by John Lewis Krimmel.

胡椒粉煲汤的广泛流传源于革命神话. Christopher Ludwick, 乔治·华盛顿的面包师将军和费城的德国移民, 在1777年冬天为华盛顿在福吉谷(Valley Forge)饥饿的军队制作了胡椒罐，长期以来一直受到赞誉. Celebrated as “the soup that won the war,费城胡椒罐后来被金宝公司作为罐头汤出售，并因 Andy Warhol in his Campbell’s soup series. Although Campbell’s discontinued their soup in 2010, 胡椒罐在日历上仍然有自己的日子——12月29日，这在很大程度上是由于它的“独立战争”起源故事.”

这种汤是费城文化的重要组成部分，以至于这座城市 Clover Club served it for Thanksgiving in 1901. Around the same time, 在美国各地的报纸上都能找到这种汤的配方, with nearly as many variations as there were home cooks. Sadly, 伯克利酒店这款汤的配方尚不清楚, 但它在菜单上的频繁出现表明，无论季节或餐, Philadelphia Pepper Pot was a perennial favorite.

By Stephanie Call, Curator of Manuscripts