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Anchovy Toast
Prepare the toast as for anchovies on toast. Spread each finger with anchovy paste, sprinkle with pepper, or finish with a little made mustard if preferred. Make very hot, and serve.
A savoury from the end of the Victorian dinner, written in shorthand because the book assumes you have already read the entry it points back to. The whole thing rests on getting the toast crisp and the paste hot without letting the butter flood out.
- "Prepare the toast as for anchovies on toast"The book is pointing back to an earlier entry, not reproduced here; the only detail the recipe itself confirms is that the toast is cut into fingers. Toast for such savouries was usually crustless and cut after toasting rather than before, so the edges do not dry out.
- Anchovy pasteStill sold in tubes and small jars, though modern versions vary: some are anchovy with oil and salt, others the older style of anchovies pounded with butter and spice. A thin scrape is enough; the paste is aggressively salty and a thick layer will overwhelm the toast.
- "Made mustard"Prepared mustard, as opposed to dry mustard powder. In an English kitchen of this date that generally meant English mustard powder mixed with water shortly before use, which is sharper and hotter than a Dijon.
- Pepper, and the cayenne questionCayenne was a common choice in Victorian savouries, and a pinch of it suits the anchovy well, though the recipe specifies only pepper. Add no salt at any stage.
- "Make very hot"The book gives no temperature or time; a few minutes under a hot grill or a short spell in a hot oven. The paste should be glossy and sizzling at the edges; served merely warm the butter sits greasy on the tongue.
- Yield and servingThe recipe gives no quantities at all; on the annotator's reckoning two slices of bread will yield roughly six fingers. Serve immediately on a hot plate, as the toast goes leathery soon after cooling.
The savoury course, a small hot and usually salty mouthful served after the sweet and before dessert, was largely a British institution, and anchovy in one form or another was its workhorse: anchovy toast, Scotch woodcock, canapes of anchovy fillet. Salted anchovy paste had been a British storecupboard staple since the eighteenth century, when it was sold alongside the fish sauces and ketchups that are often likened, though the comparison is more analogy than established fact, to the ancient Roman garum; Gentleman's Relish, the best known commercial version, dates from the early nineteenth century and is still made to a spiced anchovy formula. Recipes of the period could be given in three lines because they were really variations on a page of anchovy dishes rather than standalone ones, which tells you how completely the ingredient was taken for granted in a late-Victorian kitchen.