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Croutons, Olive
Cut some neat rounds of bread, and fry them in butter; then spread upon them a layer of Italian sausage, and pile on the top some chopped olives. Ornament with butter put on artistically through a forcing bag. Probable cost, 9d. for twelve.
A Victorian savoury canapé rather than anything for a salad bowl: in this book a "crouton" is a fried bread base cut to size and dressed on top. It comes together in minutes, and the only real skill is in the butter piping.
- "Italian sausage" means salami"Italian sausage" most likely means salami -- in an English book of this date the phrase usually refers to a cured, ready-to-eat sausage of the salame or bologna type, sliced thin, rather than raw fresh Italian-style pork sausage, which would need cooking and would not suit the method here.
- Cut the bread thinSlices about 1/4 inch thick, stamped into rounds of 1 1/2 to 2 inches with a cutter or a small glass. Thicker rounds soak up butter and go heavy under the toppings.
- Frying temperatureButter alone browns fast; use clarified butter, or half butter and half neutral oil, over medium heat until the rounds are gold on both sides. Drain on paper and cool completely before topping, or the butter garnish will slump.
- OlivesBrine-cured green olives, stoned and chopped fairly fine. Drain and blot them well; wet olives will make the fried bread sodden within a few minutes.
- Forcing bagA piping bag with a small star tube. Cream the butter until soft and smooth, pipe the border or rosettes, then chill the finished croutons briefly so the butter sets firm.
- Yield and servingThe original quantities are not given, but the costing tells you it makes twelve. Reckon on around 3 oz salami and 2 oz stoned olives for that number. Serve within an hour or so of assembling, as a cold savoury or with drinks.
- The cost note"9d." is ninepence in pre-decimal money. It is a period price index, not a modern guide.
Cassell's places this among a run of small fried-bread savouries, all built on the same principle: a crisp round of bread as the edible plate for something salty. The savoury course, served after the sweet at a formal English dinner, was largely a nineteenth-century British invention, and it gave cooks a licence to use Continental delicatessen items that would have looked out of place earlier in the meal. Salame and olives both reached British larders through the Italian warehouseman, the grocer specialising in imported oils, pastes, cheeses and cured meats, and their appearance here signals a household with access to a good town shop rather than a village one. The instruction to "ornament with butter put on artistically through a forcing bag" is very much of its moment: piped butter, piped aspic and piped forcemeat were the marks of a trained kitchen, and the forcing bag was as much a decorating tool as a pastry one.