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Cheese Canapes
Cut a stale loaf into slices about a quarter of an inch thick. Divide these into pieces about two inches long, and one inch wide, and fry them in hot butter or oil till they are a bright golden colour. Spread a little thin mustard on each of these pieces, lay over that some Cheshire or Parmesan cheese, and put them in a quick oven till the cheese is dissolved. Serve as hot as possible. Time, altogether, about half an hour. Probable cost, about 1d. each piece. Allow two or three pieces for each person.
A savoury of fried bread and melted cheese, meant to come out of the oven and go straight to the table. The only real difficulty is keeping the bread crisp under the cheese.
- "A quick oven"A hot oven, somewhere in the region of 400-450F in modern terms; the book gives no temperature. The pieces want brief fierce heat so the cheese melts before the fried bread softens, so watch them from the first few minutes.
- Cheshire cheeseA crumbly, slightly acidic cow's-milk cheese that melts loosely rather than smoothly. Aged Cheshire is sold in most good cheese shops; a dry Lancashire or a mild farmhouse Cheddar behaves similarly. Parmesan, the other option given, browns rather than flows.
- Grate or slice thinThe original says only "lay over that some Cheshire or Parmesan cheese," without specifying the form. Grated or shaved thin gives an even melt at high heat; a thick slab will still be cold in the middle when the bread has gone dark.
- "Thin mustard"Most likely mustard powder let down with a little water or beer to a spreadable consistency. English mustard made up from powder is the closest modern equivalent; use it sparingly.
- Stale bread is not optionalThe recipe specifies a stale loaf. Day-old bread holds its shape in the pan and crisps rather than collapsing; fresh bread tends to go greasy and limp.
- Frying fatButter alone browns and burns at the temperature needed here. Half butter, half a neutral oil gives the flavour without the scorching, or clarify the butter first.
- Yield and servingTwo or three pieces per person, as stated, makes this a savoury course or a canapé for drinks rather than a dish in itself. They are best not made ahead; the instruction is to serve as hot as possible.
- "Time, about half an hour"That is the whole operation including cutting and frying, not oven time. Have everything ready to bake at once.
Cheese on fried or toasted bread runs through English cookery from the Welsh rabbit onward, and by the late Victorian period it had settled into the savoury course, served after the sweet and before dessert at a formal dinner, or handed round with drinks. Dishes of this kind are an exercise in the simplest kind of made dish: bread, fat, mustard and cheese, requiring judgement about heat rather than skill with a knife. The word canap f is French for a sofa or couch, borrowed into cookery for the piece of bread on which something reclines; in this period it commonly meant fried bread rather than the cold cracker bases of later cocktail food. The costing of a penny a piece is a reminder of how the book was used, by households in which a cook was expected to account for what she spent, and Cheshire was a natural choice for a dish meant to use up a stale loaf.