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Ham Sandwiches
Take slices of stale bread, two days old, and the eighth of an inch in thickness. Cut them neatly with a sharp knife, butter them, and cover one slice evenly with thin slices of ham, cut into pieces about an inch in length, and from which all the skin and unpalatable parts have been removed. Spread a little mustard on the ham, and place another slice of bread and butter on the top. Press them together, and cut into pieces about two and a half by two inches. Arrange them neatly on a napkin, and garnish with parsley. Sandwiches are very good made with potted ham, instead of plainly-boiled ham. Probable cost of boiled ham, 2s. per pound.
A Victorian tea-table sandwich, built to be cut small and served cold on a folded napkin. The instructions are exact about thickness for a reason.
- An eighth of an inchThat is thinner than any commercial sliced loaf, and it is the whole point of the recipe: the bread is a wrapper for the ham, not the substance of the sandwich. A firm, close-crumbed white loaf and a long serrated knife will get you close; a soft modern sandwich loaf will tear.
- Why stale breadTwo-day-old bread has lost enough moisture to hold a paper-thin slice without collapsing, and it takes butter without soaking. Fresh bread drags on the knife.
- Butter both slicesThe butter is a moisture barrier as much as a seasoning. Have it soft enough to spread without pressure, and take it right to the edges, or the bread will go damp before the sandwiches reach the table.
- Potted hamThe suggested alternative is cooked ham pounded to a paste with butter and spice and sealed under clarified butter. Any smooth ham or ham-and-butter spread does the same job, and it holds a thin sandwich together better than sliced meat.
- The mustardVictorian table mustard was English mustard powder mixed with water, sharper and hotter than a jarred Dijon. Use English mustard sparingly, or the ham disappears behind it.
- Cutting and holdingCut with a single decisive stroke rather than sawing. Cut sandwiches dry out fast at these dimensions; keep them under a barely damp cloth until serving.
- YieldTwo slices of a standard loaf give roughly four pieces at the specified size, so about a dozen slices of bread will make two dozen sandwiches; the quantity of ham is a matter of judgement, as the recipe gives none.
- That priceTwo shillings a pound was a substantial cost for a household of the period, which may well lie behind the care over thin slicing and the removal of skin and unpalatable parts.
Sandwiches of this kind belong to the late-Victorian tea table and the picnic hamper rather than to lunch as we know it: small, cut neatly to a stated size, and arranged on a napkin with parsley because appearance mattered as much as filling. What the entry teaches is a technique he stale loaf, the neat rectangle — that would then be applied to cucumber, tongue, egg or anchovy. The name is generally traced to the fourth Earl of Sandwich in the 1760s, but the fussy, dainty version described here is a century later in spirit, a product of the era when afternoon tea became a fixed social occasion and the potted meats sold in glazed jars gave cooks a ready-made filling that spread cleanly on bread barely thicker than a card.