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Date Sandwiches
Stone and chop dates until soft enough to spread between thin slices of buttered bread. If good butter and wholesome white or brown bread are used one has a most satisfying luncheon, containing all the requirements of fat, sugar, nitrogen, etc. One may substitute fine-chopped nuts for the butter, for variety, if one wishes.
A spread rather than a cooked dish, and it works only if the dates are moist enough to mash without liquid. Everything else is a question of proportion and bread.
- Dates that will actually spreadModern supermarket dates are often dry enough to resist chopping into a paste. Deglet Noor benefit from ten minutes soaking in hot water, drained well; Medjool are usually soft enough to mash with a fork straight from the box.
- Chop, or processA food processor turns pitted dates into a stiff paste in under a minute, which is what "chop until soft enough to spread" is asking for. Pulse rather than run it, or you get a gummy ball that clings to the blade.
- "Nitrogen"Period shorthand for protein, from the era when foods were classed by their chemical constituents. The claim is generous for bread and butter alone; the nut variation actually delivers it.
- Butter or nuts, not both by defaultThe original offers finely chopped nuts as a replacement for the butter, not an addition. Walnuts or pecans work; if you keep the butter as well, use less date paste or the sandwich slides apart.
- BreadThin slices, firmly textured. A soft modern sandwich loaf compresses into a paste of its own under a stiff filling; a close-crumbed white or a light wholemeal holds up.
- YieldAbout a cup of paste from 8 oz pitted dates, enough for six to eight thin sandwiches. The paste keeps a week refrigerated and stiffens as it sits, so let it come to room temperature before spreading.
Date sandwiches belong to the early twentieth-century vogue for the afternoon tea sandwich and the ladies' luncheon, when small filled breads were expected to be dainty and, increasingly, defensible on nutritional grounds. The justification offered here "fat, sugar, nitrogen, etc." is the language of the domestic science movement, which encouraged cooks to think of meals as assemblies of chemical requirements rather than of dishes. Dates became widely available in American and British kitchens in the later nineteenth century, often pressed into blocks and shipped from Persia and Basra, with Californian production following in the early twentieth century; their cheapness and keeping quality made them a common pantry sweetener.