The 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic has attracted a flurry of media attention in recent week, and even in Texas, the event is not going unmarked. The celebrations range from the private (we’ve heard of at least one “Gin and TiTonic” party taking place in Austin) to a ten-course dinner that recreates the final meal served in the ship’s first-class dining hall.
Dallas’s Hotel St. Germain has been marking the anniversary all week with special cocktail hours, film screenings, and a four-course commemorative dinner Friday night. For $95 a head, diners will eat dishes adapted from the Titanic’s menu and mingle with “descendants of Titanic survivors” who will be in attendance, according to a press release.
But perhaps the most lavish Titanic commemoration in Texas will take place in Houston, where one restaurant plans to recreate the final meal served to first class passengers on the Titanic. The $12,000 evening begins with a tour of “Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition” at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. The twelve diners will then be whisked by bus to Cullen’s Restaurant in Clear Lake where they will enjoy a ten-course meal based on the menu from April 14, 1912.
Dishes to be served include oysters ala Russe, roast rack of lamb, Pennsylvania squab, and Waldorf pudding. The evening will be capped off with a glass of Armagnac brandy from 1900, “the same vintage enjoyed by the Titanic passengers,” a release says.
Those hoping for a more low-key celebration at home could simply pop open a bottle of champagne and put on Leadbelly’s 1912 song, “the Titanic,” which he first performed in Dallas, or Navasotan singer Mance Lipscomb’s “The Titanic,” which includes the lyric, “Jacob Astor was a millionaire, had plenty money to spare, but when the Titanic was sinking, lord, he could not pay his fare.” Listen to both songs below:
