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Sardine Sandwiches
Take as many tinned sardines as will be wanted. Scrape the skin lightly off each fish, split it open, cut off the tail, and remove any bones there may be. Take thin slices of bread from a stale loaf, butter these, and lay the sardines between two of them. Cut away the crust, and press the slices with the hand to make them adhere. Cut them with a sharp knife into long narrow sandwiches, and serve on a dish covered with a neatly-folded napkin. Garnish with parsley.
A straightforward Victorian savoury; the only real technique is in the handling of the fish and the bread.
- Skinning the sardinesSome tinned sardines come skinned and boned, and in most the bones are soft enough to eat. If yours have skin, it lifts away with the back of a knife once the fish is drained.
- Drain them wellBlot the fish on kitchen paper before assembling. Oil-packed sardines will soak the bread through within minutes otherwise.
- Stale bread is deliberateA day-old loaf cuts into thin slices without tearing and stands up to the oil. Buttering right to the edges seals the crumb further.
- Butter, not spreadUse softened butter so you are not dragging the slice apart. A little cayenne or lemon juice worked into the butter is period-appropriate and sharpens the oily fish.
- Pressing and cuttingThe recipe trims the crust first, then presses with the flat of the hand before cutting. Chilling the assembled sandwich for a few minutes makes the trimming and cutting easier. The long narrow 'fingers' would give perhaps three or four to a slice pair.
- YieldThe recipe fixes no quantity. A modern 120 g tin typically holds three to five fish, enough for two or three rounds. Assemble shortly before serving.
Sardines in tins became genuinely cheap in Britain, arriving in quantity from Brittany and later Portugal and Spain through the second half of the nineteenth century, and the sardine sandwich belongs to that moment when a tinned fish became an everyday larder staple rather than a luxury. It sits among the light savouries and tea-table dishes, where thin bread, trimmed crusts and a folded napkin mattered as much as the filling: this is food for afternoon tea, a picnic basket, or the tail end of a supper, not a main course. The garnish of parsley and the napkin-lined dish are often said to be the usual Victorian presentation for anything served cold in fingers, and the instruction to cut away the crust marks the sandwich as a polite dish rather than working fare.