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Cocoanut and Date Sandwich
1 pkg. Dromedary Cocoanut 1 pkg. Dromedary Dates 3 tbsp. orange juice 1 tbsp. powdered sugar 4 tbsp. thick cream Buttered bread Chop cocoanut and dates, add orange juice, sugar and cream. Mix well and place between ovals of buttered bread, Decorate with stoned Dromedary Dates and serve as soon as possible. Any kind of fruit juice may be used.
A tea-table sandwich from a brand booklet, which means the quantities assume packages that no longer exist. The filling is sound; the assembly is what needs attention.
- The package problemThe booklet states no weights for either the Dromedary cocoanut or the Dromedary dates, and there is no reason to assume the two cartons held equal amounts. For a workable filling, start with about 1 cup shredded coconut to 1 cup pitted dates and adjust; a full pound of dates against a small carton of coconut gives paste rather than sandwich filling.
- CoconutWhat Dromedary packed under this name was shredded coconut; whether it was moist and sweetened or dry and unsweetened is not stated, and period shredded cocoanut was often dry. If you use unsweetened dry coconut the filling will drink the cream and the orange juice and turn stiff, so add a spoonful more of each.
- Thick creamHeavy or whipping cream, poured, not whipped. Four tablespoons is enough to bind chopped fruit; more and the filling will soak through the crumb.
- Powdered sugarIn this period the term may mean finely pulverised sugar rather than modern cornstarch-blended confectioners' sugar; either works here. With dates already sweet, the tablespoon is close to unnecessary, and can be dropped if you are using a sweet white loaf.
- Stoned dates"stoned" means pitted. Check for pits before chopping, and chop by hand or in short pulses, since a food processor run long turns dates to glue.
- Ovals of breadThin-sliced sandwich bread cut with an oval or round cutter, crusts discarded. Butter the bread before filling it: the fat layer is what keeps the juice-loosened filling from soaking in.
- Serve as soon as possibleThis is the hinge, and the booklet is right about it. Orange juice and cream in contact with cut bread means the sandwiches go limp within the hour, so fill them close to serving and keep them under a damp cloth in the meantime.
- YieldA dozen thin slices cut into single ovals makes about six small tea sandwiches; more if each slice yields two ovals.
Dromedary was the grocery brand of the Hills Brothers Company of New York (no relation to the San Francisco coffee roasters), and by the 1910s and 1920s it was said to be among the larger packers of dates and shredded coconut in the United States. Booklets like this one existed to find new uses for those two products, and they were doing exactly that work: dates were still slightly exotic to American cooks, associated with Christmas boxes and confectionery, and the company wanted them in everyday rotation. The sweet tea sandwich cut into ovals or rounds with crusts trimmed was a fixture of afternoon entertaining in this period, and fruit-and-cream fillings of this kind appear across brand pamphlets of the era, usually with the same closing note that any fruit juice will serve.