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Onion Sandwiches
Cut bread very thin, removing all crust. Bermuda or Spanish onion chopped fine and mixed with rich mayonnaise dressing and spread between buttered bread. Sardines can also be added for a change. -Fanny M. Eby, Harrisburg.
A tea-table sandwich from the era when a raw onion between buttered bread counted as a refreshment. The whole thing hinges on how thin the bread is and how mild the onion.
- The onion is the recipeBermuda and Spanish onions are the sweet, low-sulfur types; a yellow storage onion will be harsh and dominate everything. Sweet varieties like Vidalia or Walla Walla are the closest modern equivalents, and a 10-minute soak in cold water tames any remaining bite.
- Chopped, not diced"Chopped fine" here means nearly minced, so the filling holds together in the mayonnaise rather than shifting out of the sandwich when bitten. A grate on the coarse side of a box grater works, but drain off the liquid or the bread will go soggy.
- Rich mayonnaiseMayonnaise in this period was normally beaten at home, and "rich" most likely signals a thick dressing (plenty of oil, sometimes extra yolks or added cream) rather than a thin boiled one. Commercial mayonnaise works; stir in an extra spoonful of oil or a little sour cream if you want more body.
- Butter both slicesThe butter helps keep the dressing from soaking into the thin crumb as well as adding flavour. Have it soft enough to spread without tearing the bread, and spread all the way to the edges.
- BreadA close-grained white sandwich loaf, sliced as thin as your knife allows, is what this was written for. Day-old bread cuts thinner and cleaner than fresh; the recipe removes the crust before spreading.
- SardinesDrain them well and mash to a paste before folding into the onion mayonnaise, or the oil will run. Skinless, boneless fillets in olive oil are the mildest choice.
- Yield and servingOne medium sweet onion and about a half cup of mayonnaise fills roughly eight thin sandwiches, cut into quarters or fingers for a tray. Assemble no more than an hour or two ahead and keep them covered with a damp cloth in the refrigerator.
Onion sandwiches belong to the American afternoon-tea and card-party repertoire of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when the thin buttered sandwich was a fixed form and cooks rang changes on the filling — watercress, nasturtium, radish, nut and cheese, and raw sweet onion. The specification of Bermuda or Spanish onion matters historically: Bermuda onions were a long-established import into East Coast ports during the nineteenth century, prized precisely because they were mild enough to eat uncooked, and Spanish onions filled the same role. Bottled mayonnaise was not yet the default it would become, so "rich mayonnaise dressing" would in most households have been beaten at home. The attribution to Fanny M. Eby of Harrisburg marks this as one of the contributed recipes that made up much of the bulk of community and magazine-sponsored cookbooks, where a household's small idea — add sardines for a change — got printed under its author's name.