when did the tuna melt first appear on a restaurant menu

---

Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 08 Jan 2005 12:29 PST

Earliest reference I could find is from 1975, IHOP, $1.49, comes with fries.

Searching records prior to 1975 didn't turn anything up, though it's
hard to know when the "first" use of the tuna melt appeared in print? 
What sort of evidence are you interested in having?

pafalafa-ga

---

Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 08 Jan 2005 15:23 PST

I'm sure pinkfreud is right (see the comment, below).  I've since
turned up a 1968 restaurant reference:  tuna melt with cottage cheese
and sliced pineapple...79 cents!

---

Clarification of Question by dalew-ga on 10 Jan 2005 13:26 PST

Thank you--I would love to view or have some evidence as to the first
time the tuna melt appeared on a menu.

---

Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 10 Jan 2005 15:06 PST

I'd love to help you, but Im afraid I don't know how.  Like I said, I
found "tuna melt" references from restaurants from the 1960's, but I
haven't a clue if these were the first ones to appear or not.

This article about the tuna melt doesn't answer your question, but you
may find it interesting:

http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:TVqDC6mjUIgJ:www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/living/food/5044473.htm

In the mid-1960s there was a tuna melt sandwich on the menu of a
drive-in restaurant called Pennington's, in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Since the tuna melt sandwich was included in the original "Joy of
Cooking," which was published in 1931, it seems likely that some
restaurant may have included this item on the menu as early as the
1930s. Finding a copy of such a menu is likely to be a daunting task,
however.