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VICTORIA SANDWICHES, SAVOURY (for breakfast, luncheon, etc.)
Wash six or eight anchovies, cut off their heads and fins, take out the backbones, and divide each fish in two, from the shoulder to the tail. Cut an equal number of thin slices of brown bread and butter; put between each two slices alternate layers of hard-boiled eggs, mustard and cress cut small, and the fillets of the anchovies; press the slices closely together, and with a sharp knife cut them into neat squares. Place them on a dish covered with a napkin, and garnish with parsley. If not wanted immediately, cover them with a napkin wrung out of cold water to keep them moist.
A cold savoury built like a layer cake and cut down into squares, from the era when the luncheon table was expected to look composed. Almost nothing here needs changing except the fish.
- AnchoviesThe recipe assumes whole salt-cured anchovies, which need rinsing, boning and splitting. Salt-packed anchovies are still sold and worth the trouble; if you use tinned fillets in oil, blot them well and skip the whole first sentence. Six to eight whole fish gives roughly 12-16 fillets.
- Mustard and cressA British punnet of mustard and garden cress seedlings, snipped at the base and used as a peppery green rather than a herb. Any fine microgreen, or watercress leaves stripped from their stalks, gives the same bite and moisture.
- Brown breadWholemeal, cut thin and buttered. Butter it right to the edge; it seals the bread against the damp filling and keeps the squares from going soggy while they stand.
- AssemblyThe hinge is pressing. Layer the fillings evenly, press the slices closely together as the recipe directs (weighting the stack briefly under a plate does the job), then cut with a long sharp knife wiped clean between cuts. Unpressed sandwiches shed their filling the moment the blade goes in.
- Hard-boiled eggsSlice them thinly rather than chopping, or the layers will not sit flat. The recipe gives no quantity; two eggs will cover six to eight sandwiches.
- The damp napkinA sound technique, and still the best way to hold cut sandwiches for an hour or two. Wring a clean cloth in cold water until barely damp, lay it directly over the squares, and refrigerate. Cling film flattens them and traps condensation.
- YieldThe recipe gives no piece count. Read literally, an equal number of bread slices to fish means six to eight slices, so three or four sandwiches, each cut into a few neat squares.
The name is generally traced to the Victoria sandwich proper, the jam-filled sponge often associated with the Queen, though the derivation is traditional rather than documented; what it borrows is the form rather than the flavour: two layers pressed together and cut into neat portions. Savoury versions like this one belonged to the breakfast and luncheon end of the Victorian day, when anchovy in some form was near-ubiquitous on the British table, as paste, essence, sauce or fillet, prized for supplying salt and depth without heat or trouble. Cassell's, compiled as a dictionary rather than a narrative cookbook, gathered dozens of such small cold dishes because a middle-class household was expected to produce something presentable at short notice, and because a dish arranged on a napkin with a sprig of parsley signalled care as much as the food itself did.