Life — November 18, 1926 — page 26: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This is a humorous historical satire titled "In Ye Goode Olde Dayes" depicting "The First Man to Order a Vegetable Dinner." The cartoon shows a multi-level scene set in what appears to be a medieval or Tudor-era tavern or feast hall. The joke satirizes the absurdity of ordering only vegetables in an era when meat was the centerpiece of dining, particularly for men. The upper levels show typical feasting with roasted animals and revelry, while the lower level shows a single man attempting to order vegetables—presented as such an outlandish request that it's treated as a historical oddity worthy of commemoration. The satire likely reflects early 20th-century attitudes about masculinity and dining, mocking vegetarianism as an unnatural, unmanly choice by contrasting it with traditional hearty meat-eating culture. The detailed period setting emphasizes how counter to historical dining practices such restraint would have been.