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Banana Sandwiches
Slice and serve the fruit between Banana Loaf or plain bread with mayonnaise, or add lemon juice to the crushed pulp. Cress may be added.
T CHAPTER XXI THE FIG (Moracea) HE Ficus carica, or common fig, is but one of more than a hundred species of a most interesting fruit which from the earliest of ancient times has, in its varying forms, been accorded not only a place of importance but honour and reverence. Biblical records mention the fig as clothing, food, and medicine, and, regarding the first, were foliage available for modern costumes the fig tree would be enhanced in value because of the infinite variety of its leafpatterns; two leaves, even on the same tree, seldom being found exactly alike.
The Egyptian Sycamore (F. sycamorus) which is supposed to be the sycamore of the Scriptures, the Banyan (F. Indica), the India Rubber tree (F. elastica), or "Caoutchouc," and the renowned Peepul Tree of India (F. religiosa: the Bo Tree of Ceylon) are among the many species of the fig, and the oldest tree in the world is a Ceylon Bo Tree whose age is estimated by historical records to be over two thousand years. The Hindus venerate the Sacred Fig because Vishnu is said to have been born under it and the Buddhists because under one of them they believe "Gotama Buddha reclined at Uruwelaya when he underwent his apotheosis." Colder countries are not strangers to the fig for it is cultivated many degrees north of the frost line in both Europe and America though, as in France and England, winter-protection is a necessity.
Either green or dried figs are excellent food and as a whole the fruit has no superior in healthfulness. Its large amount of sugar is nourishing and being one of nature's best laxatives, pleasant to the taste, mild yet positive in effect, it may be given more freely with greater safety in quantity-to many more people (from children to those most advanced in years) than decidedly acid fruits. Figs are also considered good for the kidneys and because of their demulcent property are sometimes given in pulmonary troubles. Externally applied they are considered very healing (as in the days of Hezekiah) and so, roasted gently or boiled, the inner part is not infrequently used as a poultice. It is said that among the Malays the juice of one species of fig, the F. toxicaria, is used for poisoning arrows. With some figs the milk is very mild but with many others is acrid though not harmful as with the toxicaria. It was without doubt this very common, temporary stinging sensation which gave rise to the custom of eating fresh figs as below.
Wherever this fruit grows every effort should be made to put by a goodly store for future use for, perhaps, in addition to its wholesome qualities there is no fruit which dried, or preserved by some method of cooking, so retains or so transforms its charms into equal attractiveness. It is almost unique in being as agreeable dried as in its original, fresh juiciness and its saccharine quality is greater.
A two-line formula rather than a recipe in the modern sense; the text then runs straight on into the book's chapter on figs, which has nothing to do with the sandwich. Two versions are offered: sliced banana with mayonnaise, or crushed banana dressed with lemon juice.
- The hinge: acid, immediatelyCut banana browns within minutes once exposed to air. Toss the slices or the crushed pulp with lemon juice the moment they are cut, not after the bread is buttered. The mayonnaise version gets some protection from the vinegar in the dressing, but not enough on its own.
- Mayonnaise in 1900Mayonnaise in a book of this period -- This would have meant a homemade emulsion of egg yolk, oil, and vinegar or lemon, often looser than the stiff jarred product. Modern commercial mayonnaise is thicker and sweeter; use it sparingly or slacken it with a little lemon juice so it does not overwhelm the fruit.
- Banana LoafApparently a cross-reference to another recipe elsewhere in the book; what it contained cannot be told from this page. Any tender, slightly sweet loaf works; plain white sandwich bread, as the recipe allows, is the safer choice because it will not compete with the fruit.
- CressIn a book of this period this usually means garden cress or watercress, used for its pepperiness rather than as salad bulk. A small handful of leaves, stems removed, is enough; the point is a sharp note against the sweetness.
- Two versions, two texturesSliced banana holds its shape and gives a firmer sandwich; crushed pulp spreads thinly and soaks the crumb, so it must be assembled and eaten at once. Neither keeps, and neither travels.
- Yield and servingThe recipe gives no yield; a medium banana will cover roughly a couple of sandwiches on standard bread. Serve at once, at tea or on a lunch tray.
The banana sandwich belongs to the moment when bananas stopped being a luxury. Regular fast ventilated steamer service from the Caribbean in the closing decades of the nineteenth century turned the fruit from an occasional curiosity into one of the cheapest things in an American market, and cookbooks of the 1900s and 1910s responded by pushing bananas into every category they had, including the sandwich chapter and the salad chapter. The mayonnaise here is not a joke: at the time, mayonnaise was a common dressing for fruit served as a salad, and a fruit sandwich was simply a salad between bread, which is also why cress is offered. The combination survives in the American South as banana-and-mayonnaise on white bread, a dish more often described as a childhood memory than found in print, and this entry is a reminder that it was once ordinary recipe-book advice rather than a regional eccentricity.