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Union Sandwiches
Use a round tinned loaf for these. Spread a third of the number of slices with potted veal, another third with anchovy paste, and the remainder with mustard and cress and chopped capers; season the whole with pepper and a very little salt. Make the sandwiches by putting the slices with anchovy at the bottom, then those with cress, etc., bread side down, then press the veal on to the cress. Cut into triangles and arrange in a ring on a dish covered with a lace paper. A little mayonnaise may be used for garnish, with a few fillets of anchovy.
A late-Victorian three-decker savoury sandwich, built for a tea table or supper buffet rather than a lunchbox. Most of the work is in the assembly, and two of the three fillings need translating.
- The loafA "round tinned loaf" is bread baked in a cylindrical tin, so every slice is a neat circle. Any close-crumbed sandwich loaf works; slice thin, about 1/4 inch, since three slices are stacked.
- Potted vealCooked veal pounded to a paste with butter and mace and sealed under clarified butter — a Victorian larder staple, often made at home from cold roast meat. Potted veal itself is hard to find now, though similar potted meat pastes are still sold. Any firm, well-seasoned meat paste or a fine chicken or veal rillette-style spread gives the same effect.
- Mustard and cressSeedling white mustard and garden cress grown together on damp flannel, cut at an inch or two high. Sold now as "cress" punnets in the UK; elsewhere, a mix of mustard and cress microgreens is the exact equivalent. Watercress is peppery but coarser and wetter.
- Go carefully with the saltAnchovy paste and capers are both heavily salted, and potted meats were traditionally salted for keeping. The recipe's "a very little salt" is deliberate; taste the veal layer before adding any at all.
- The stacking orderRead the assembly literally: anchovy slice spread-side up at the bottom, then the cress slice laid bread-side down onto it so its own spread faces upward, then the veal slice pressed spread-side down on top, so the cress and veal spreads meet.
- Butter firstNot stated here, though butter is taken for granted in many Victorian sandwich recipes: butter each slice to the edge before spreading. It stops the cress moisture and the mayonnaise garnish from soaking the crumb.
- Cutting and holdingPress the stack under a board for ten minutes and chill briefly before cutting, or the layers slide. Trim the crusts, then cut across into triangles with a long thin knife wiped between cuts.
- ServingA "dish covered with a lace paper" is a plate lined with a doily; the sandwiches are arranged in a ring on it. The yield depends entirely on how thinly the loaf is sliced. Assemble the same day and keep covered with a damp cloth.
Cassell's belongs to the era when a sandwich was a savoury course in its own right — served at afternoon tea, ball suppers and picnics, and judged on how it looked on the dish as much as how it tasted. The name may refer to the union of three different fillings in one stack rather than to any political event, though nothing in the recipe says so. Potted veal and anchovy paste both come out of the same household logic: strongly flavoured meat and fish pastes, sealed under butter, that kept well in a cool larder and could be spread at a moment's notice. Mustard and cress supplied the green note year-round, since it could be raised on a windowsill in a week or so and was one of the few salad things a town household could count on in winter.