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Pimiento Cheese Sandwiches
2 tablespoonfuls Crisco 1 cupful diced cheese 1 teaspoonful cornstarch 6 tablespoonfuls milk 1 teaspoonful salt 1 can pimientoes Paprika to taste Graham bread Put cheese into double boiler, add Crisco, cornstarch, milk, salt, and paprika to taste and stir and cook until smooth, then add pimientoes cut into small pieces. Spread between buttered slices of graham bread. Sufficient for twenty-five sandwiches.
A cooked cheese spread rather than the stirred-together mayonnaise version most people know today. The cornstarch and gentle heat are what keep it smooth and sliceable.
- Keep it off direct heatThe double boiler is the hinge. Cheese heated over a direct flame will break and turn grainy and oily; over simmering water it stays emulsified, and the cornstarch holds it there as it cools.
- CriscoThis book was published to promote Crisco, and the shortening appears in nearly everything. Butter works better here and adds flavour; use 2 tablespoons of it.
- The cheese"Diced cheese" in 1915 means a firm mild American or Cheddar, cut small so it melts evenly. A cupful of dice is roughly 4 oz. Grate it rather than dicing and it will melt faster; avoid pre-shredded bags, as the anti-caking starch fights the sauce.
- CornstarchStir it into the cold milk first to make a slurry. Dropped into warm cheese it will seize into lumps that never disperse.
- Canned pimientosA period can was small, a few ounces. They are still sold, usually in small jars now. Drain them well and blot dry, or the water thins the spread and it soaks into the bread.
- SaltA full teaspoon is heavy against salted cheese and butter. Start with a quarter teaspoon and taste once the cheese has melted.
- Graham breadA whole-wheat loaf, generally softer and slightly sweetened compared to today's dense whole-grain bread. Any sandwich-sliced wheat bread stands in.
- YieldTwenty-five sandwiches from 4 oz of cheese means a very thin scrape, typical of tea-table and picnic sandwiches cut into fingers or triangles. For lunch-sized sandwiches, reckon on six to eight, or triple the filling.
- Making aheadThe spread firms considerably as it chills and is easier to handle cold. It keeps about four days covered in the refrigerator; let it sit out briefly before spreading so it does not tear the bread.
A Calendar of Dinners was written by Marion Harris Neil and issued by Procter & Gamble to promote Crisco, which had gone on sale a few years earlier in 1911; that accounts for the two tablespoons of shortening in a cheese spread that plainly does not need them. The dish itself belongs to the first great age of canned pimientos, the sweet red Spanish peppers that were being grown and canned commercially in the American South in the early twentieth century. Pimiento cheese is now firmly identified as a Southern food, but in books of this period it appears as a national convenience item, sitting alongside the other tea and picnic sandwiches. The cooked, cornstarch-bound version here is often said to be the older form, though uncooked mixtures are recorded just as early; what can be said for it is that it slices cleanly and travels well.