An official menu for a state banquet that bears the signature of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong has been auctioned for $275,000.

Boston-based RR Auction said the menu auctioned Wednesday was for a banquet held in Beijing on October 19, 1956, and commemorated the first state visit to China by Pakistan’s Prime Minister Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy.

The menu was signed in fountain pen by six influential Chinese statesmen, including Mao and Premier Zhou Enlai. The banquet featured foods from both nations and included delicacies such as “Consommé of Swallow Nest and White Agaric,” “Shark’s Fin in Brown Sauce,” and “Roast Peking Duck.”

“To hold a menu signed by Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai is to hold a piece of the past – a piece that tells a story of diplomatic engagement, cultural exchange, and the forging of friendships that have endured through the decades,” Bobby Livingston, executive vice president at RR Auction, said in a statement.

Starbucks proposes restarting union talks

Starbucks said Friday it’s committed to bargaining with its unionized workers and reaching labor agreements next year, a major reversal for the coffee chain after two years fighting the unionization of its U.S. stores.

In a letter to Lynne Fox, the president of the Workers United union, Starbucks Chief Partner Officer Sara Kelly said the current bargaining impasse between the two sides “should not be acceptable to either of us.” Kelly asked to restart bargaining in January.

“We will set as an ambition and hopeful goal the completion of bargaining and the ratification of contracts in 2024,” Kelly wrote in the letter.

In a statement distributed by Workers United, Fox said she is reviewing the letter and will respond.