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Pepper Jam Sandwiches
Cut an equal number of slices of Dark Graham bread and White bred, remove crusts, and spread bread with Creamed butter. On one slice of white bread spread Pepper jam, cover with slice of Graham bread, spread with Butter and pepper jam and cover with a slice of white bread. Make other sandwiches with Graham bread on the outside and white bread for the center layer. Wrap in damp cheesecloth, press under a light weight, and leave in a cool place until serving time. Trim edges, cut in slices, and arrange on doily-covered plate.
A ribbon sandwich, built in layers and pressed so it slices clean. The pressing is the whole technique; skip it and the layers slide apart under the knife.
- Pepper jamUsually a sweet red bell pepper preserve rather than a hot-pepper jelly in the modern sense, sometimes called pepper relish or pepper marmalade, cooked with sugar and vinegar until thick. Any commercial red pepper jelly or thick pepper relish stands in; drain off loose syrup so the bread does not go soggy.
- Creamed butterButter beaten alone until pale and spreadable, not butter creamed with sugar. Leave it at room temperature an hour and work it smooth with a spoon so it spreads without tearing soft bread.
- Graham breadA whole-wheat loaf made with coarse graham flour, darker and slightly sweeter than modern sandwich wheat bread. A dense whole-wheat sandwich loaf gives the same colour contrast, which is the entire point of alternating the layers.
- Bread choiceUse day-old bread, close-grained and sliced thin and evenly. Fresh bread compresses into paste under the weight and airy modern loaves collapse.
- The pressDamp cheesecloth keeps the cut edges from drying while a light weight, a plate with a can on it, knits the layers. An hour or two chilled is enough; overnight under anything heavy flattens the stack.
- Buttering both facesButter every surface that meets jam. The fat seals the crumb and is what keeps the jam from soaking through and staining the white layers.
- CuttingTrim the four sides square with a long thin knife, wiping the blade between cuts, then slice down through the stack so each piece shows the stripes. Slices about half an inch thick hold together in the hand.
- YieldThree slices of bread build one stack: white, graham, white, cut across into ribbon sandwiches. The recipe also directs a second kind, graham on the outside with white in the centre.
Ribbon sandwiches belong to the ladies' luncheon and afternoon-tea culture of the early twentieth century, when a hostess was judged on presentation as much as flavour, and Alice Bradley's collections for luncheon and supper guests appear to include them: bread built in coloured layers, pressed, chilled and cut so the cross-section did the decorating. Pepper jam itself was a standard product of the American home preserving shelf, made from the late-summer glut of sweet red peppers with sugar and vinegar, and its sweetness and slight bite carried well against plain buttered bread. Graham bread takes its name from Sylvester Graham, the nineteenth-century advocate of coarsely milled unsifted wheat flour, whose name had long outlived his dietary crusade and by the 1920s simply meant whole-wheat. The doily-covered plate, which sounds like fussiness now, was the conventional dressing for such service.