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Sweet Pickle Sandwiches
Sweet pickles, chopped and spread between slices of nut or plain bread.
A one-line tea-sandwich formula from an era when a chapter of "dainty sandwiches" was assumed to be self-explanatory. What it leaves out is mostly technique, and the technique is all about keeping the bread dry.
- What "sweet pickles" meantVegetables or fruit put up in sweetened spiced vinegar; in this period the term covered sweet-pickled cucumbers as well as peaches, pears and watermelon rind, so the filling is closer to a bread-and-butter pickle than to modern sweet relish. Relish from a jar will work but is wetter and already chopped, so it needs harder draining.
- Drain, then drain againThis is the hinge. Chop the pickles fine, spread them on a clean towel or several layers of paper and press out the syrup before they go anywhere near bread, or the sandwiches turn to paste within the hour.
- Butter the breadThe recipe does not mention it. A thin film of softened butter, edge to edge on both slices, seals the crumb against the remaining pickle liquid. Cream cheese does the same job and suits the sweet-sour filling.
- Nut breadNut breads of this period were typically sweet baking-powder quick breads with chopped nuts rather than yeast loaves. A day-old loaf slices cleanly; fresh quick bread tears.
- Slice thin, trim lateAim for about a quarter inch. Cut crusts off after filling and pressing, not before, and use a long serrated knife wiped between cuts.
- Yield and holdingA cup of drained chopped pickle fills roughly twelve to sixteen small tea sandwiches. Assemble no more than two or three hours ahead, stack under a barely damp cloth in a covered container, and refrigerate.
The Five Roses Cook Book was published by the Lake of the Woods Milling Company to sell flour. Sandwiches like this one belong to the afternoon-tea and church-social culture of the early twentieth century. Sweet cucumber pickles were a standard product of the late-summer preserving weeks in Canadian and American households, so a jar was simply on hand; using them as a filling costs nothing and gives a sharp counterpoint to a sweet, close-grained nut loaf. The terseness is characteristic of the genre: these pages functioned as prompts for cooks who already knew the form, not as instructions for beginners.