The Last Night on the Titanic: Unsinkable Drinking, Dining, and Style

by Veronica Hinke

Overview

The Last Night on the Titanic demystifies life in all three classes aboard the world’s most beloved ocean liner. Learn why the Titanic still captures the heart of people everywhere even 110 years later.

Sailing—and making history—on the cusp of Prohibition, the Titanic defined drinking and dining styles of the Edwardian era. Societal lines were distinctly drawn as never before. Laden with never-before-experienced luxuries in all three classes, the Titanic set an unprecedented standard and created a time capsule that continues to draw intense interest even 110 years later.

Veronica Hinke has curated a culinary narrative that informs and provides new and thrilling insights on what passengers and crew experienced. The Last Night on the Titanic is based on carefully researched and studied historic news articles, menus, and books, as well as dozens of intimate interviews with experts and family members of passengers and crew. Recipes related to moving stories of tragedy and survival are interspersed throughout and easy for readers to make at home, including:
· Recipes for English spring pea soufflé, apple meringue, and more mouthwatering Titanic foods
· Drink recipes from the hotels that first class passenger John Jacob Astor IV established that still carry on today—including the original martini
· True and accurate accounts of the real Margaret “Unsinkable Molly” Brown
· Letters from passengers that were received days after the sinking, including one to legendary journalist HV Kaltenborn.
· True stories from his family members about what really happened to Chief Baker Charles Joughin

“We all think about what our last meal would be. On her maiden voyage, guests on the world’s most famous passenger ship, the RMS Titanic, were dining on the finest foods prepared by the best French chefs and toasting with the best champagne, not knowing that it would be their last meal. Veronica Hinke has taken a story that we all know so well and interwoven delicious recipes that, while historic and old, are classic and worthy of any modern-day table. She has unearthed a vibrant culinary subtext that often left me breathless and dreamy-eyed. She skillfully captures the magical flavor of a fascinating era in our history. Two spatulas raised in adulation.”
—Chef Art Smith, former personal chef to Oprah Winfrey

“A rich and fascinating addition to Titanic literature. If a book can be compared to a soft, warm sweater, that’s exactly how I’d describe Veronica Hinke’s The Last Night on the Titanic. The reader will find the text on each page purled with anecdotes and personal details about the luxury liner’s passengers and crew and want to snuggle deeper into each story and recipe.”
—Rick Archbold and Dana McCauley, co-authors, Last Dinner on the Titanic

“Congratulations on a well-researched book!” —Yvonne Hume, Great-niece of Titanic First Violinist John (“Jock”) Hume

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781637589304
Publisher:	Permuted Press
Publication date:	04/11/2023
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	119,232
Product dimensions:	7.10(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

While growing up in northern Wisconsin, Veronica Hinke was intrigued by the story of a third-class Titanic passenger who had lived near her hometown. Dan Coxon (“Popcorn Dan”) was a popcorn vendor and friend to everyone. He did not survive. He inspired years of Titanic research that culminated into the book The Last Night on the Titanic: Unsinkable Drinking, Dining, and Style. For the book, Veronica delved into long-forgotten Edwardian cocktails of the pre-Prohibition years. She worked with Premier Exhibitions to obtain data on liquor, beer, spirits, and wine remnants pulled from Titanic debris sites. “Each bottle provides a peek into the Titanic’s history and helps demystify for us what life was like for people in all three classes,” she said. Hinke’s book also features foods that she traced back to breakfast, lunch, and dinner menus that survived the sinking of the Titanic.

Editorial Reviews

04/22/2019

Food writer Hinke uses the Titanic as a jumping-off point to examine early-1900s cuisine and culture in this well-intentioned if unfocused history. Drawing on letters, testimonies, and the few menus that survived the Titanic’s 1912 sinking, Hinke shares recipes for food and drinks served onboard, as well as the stories of surviving passengers (such as fashion designer Lady Duff-Gordon, who was accused of bribing crew members to row their nearly empty lifeboat far from the ship). However, given that not many artifacts survived the ship’s sinking, Hinke frequently relies on educated guesses and relates stories only tangentially linked to the Titanic. She posits, for example, that caramel corn was served on the doomed voyage, basing her findings solely on the fact that it was popular at the time; she then discusses the Bloody Mary, invented in 1934 at the St. Regis Hotel (which was built by J. J. Astor, who died on the ship), as well as Delmonico’s restaurant in New York City (where a ship survivor might have passed on their way to the insurance office to file a claim). Throughout are descriptions of the ship’s restaurants, such as the Verandah Café, decorated in the style of the dining room in London’s Savoy Hotel. This ambling, pedestrian history will appeal only to the most passionate Titanic history buffs. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly