[lopsotronic]

Refrigeration and freezer cars completely inverted a lot of prices in the late 19th through the early 20th century.

Coming home from the Appalachian Trail I stayed at the Inn at St. John's in Portland ME, waiting for my flight home. The Inn had an antique framed menu from Delmonico's Restaurant in New York, from 1834. The price inversion was occasionally quite shocking- on that menu I noted roast chicken was twice as much as roast mutton, for example.

Let's see if I can dig up my old trail journal . . .

    Delmonico's Restaurant
    494 Pearl St
    
    Cup of Tea or Coffee-.01
    Bowl of Same- .02
    Crullers-.11
    Soup- .02
    Fried or stewed Liver- .02
    Hash- .03
    Pies- .04
    Beef or Mutton Stew- .04
    Corned Beef & Cabbage- .04
    Pig's Head & Cabbage- .04
    Sausage & Cabbage -.04
    Knuckle & Cabbage- .04
    Fried Fish- .04
    Beef Steak- .04
    Pork Chops- .04
    Pork & Beans -.04 (What the hell? I mean, pork and beans?)
    Sausages- .04
    Puddings- .04 (The pudding of this time was probably more like a rindless sausage than anything we think of as pudding, and could be made from blood, innards, brains,     what-have-you)
    Liver & Bacon - .05
    Roast Beef or Veal- .05
    Roast Mutton- .05
    Veal Cutlet- .05
    Chicken Stew- .05
    Fried Eggs- .05 (I have no idea where this price comes from, although I think the lack of refrigeration in 1834 might have made eggs a bit more of a luxury then than now, and     it's also probable that a fried egg in 1834 was more something like a Scotch Egg than sunnyside up)
    Ham & Eggs- .10
    Hamburger Steak- .10 (Big spender! Again, a hamburger must have been something different in 1834)
    Roast Chicken- .10

[MarkusQ]

I think fried eggs were pretty similar in the 1830s Maine to what we have today; I suspect transportation was most of the issue, as eggs would be significantly less efficient to transport than, say, a side of beef.

Hamburger steak was steak, chopped seasoned and reformed, which added a labor step though it allowed for the use of trimmings. 10¢ in 1837 would be roughly $4 today, so that doesn't seem too out of line.

The big difference is that fish and seafood is cheap.