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Favorite Sandwiches
(Mr. J. A. Wahlen) 1/4 pound protose 3 egg yolks, hard boiled 2 tablespoons chili sauce, or enough to make of proper consistency to spread 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon celery salt 1 teaspoon chopped parsley 1/2 teaspoon grated onion 1/4 teaspoon lemon juice
A spreadable sandwich filling built on protose, the wheat-gluten-and-peanut meat substitute sold by the Battle Creek Sanitas company. The proportions work as written; the only real obstacle is the main ingredient.
- ProtoseA canned loaf of gluten and ground peanuts, firm enough to slice or grind, with a mild savory flavor. It is no longer on the market, though canned versions were sold well into recent decades. The closest substitutes are a firm canned or vacuum-packed wheat gluten product, or a dense homemade seitan loaf ground fine; a mild peanut butter stirred into the mixture gets you nearer the original flavor.
- Texture is the pointGrate or grind the protose fine and mash the yolks smooth before the chili sauce goes in. Any lumps of gluten will tear the bread when you spread it.
- Chili sauceNot a hot sauce. Early twentieth-century chili sauce was a thick, sweet-sour tomato relish, close to a coarse ketchup. Use a tomato-based chili sauce or ketchup loosened with a little vinegar, and add it gradually until the mixture just holds together.
- Three yolks to a quarter poundThat is a high proportion of yolk, and it is doing the work of mayonnaise here. Hard-boil the eggs fully, press the yolks through a sieve, and keep the whites for something else.
- Celery salt and grated onionBoth are still sold as written. Grate the onion on a fine rasp and include the juice; a chopped onion will not distribute through so small a quantity of filling.
- Quarter teaspoon lemon juiceA very small quantity. It sharpens the yolks rather than flavoring the spread, so measure it rather than squeezing freehand.
- Yield and keepingRoughly a cup of filling, enough for four to six sandwiches. Because of the cooked egg, keep it refrigerated and use it within a day or two.
- BreadA close-crumbed white or light whole-wheat sandwich loaf suits it. Spread the filling thinly, and trim the crusts if you like.
Protose was one of the flagship products of the Battle Creek health-food industry that grew up around John Harvey Kellogg's sanitarium, and its appearance here points to the Seventh-day Adventist vegetarian cooking tradition, in which nut and gluten preparations stood in for meat. Cookbooks from that world contain sandwich fillings of this general type: a ground meat substitute, hard-boiled egg, a bottled tomato relish for moisture, and a short list of mild seasonings, worked to a spreadable paste. Attributions to individual contributors by name, as with Mr. Wahlen here, are a feature of institutional and community collections of the period.