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Ribbon Sandwiches
Mrs. Chas. Greenwood.
Remove all crusts from white and brown loaves. Slice half of each loaf lengthwise into half-inch slices. Butter all slices on both sides, except one white and one brown. Spread each slice with a different sandwich filling such as cream cheese, chopped hard-boiled eggs, Kay, dates and nuts, or stuffed olives and nuts. Alternate dark and light slices when putting together. Press firmly, wrap in a damp towel or waxed paper and place in refrigerator two hours before slicing. 1 Cream Cheese
A pressed sandwich loaf built from lengthwise slices, meant to be cut across into striped fingers. The whole thing depends on the chill and the press.
- The hinge: chill under weightTwo hours in the refrigerator wrapped in waxed paper is the minimum, and a light weight on top (a small board, a plate, a wrapped brick) makes the layers cohere so the loaf cuts cleanly. Slice with a long thin knife wiped between cuts; a serrated bread knife tears the fillings.
- Lengthwise slicesHalf-inch slices cut the long way are not something a bagged loaf gives you. Buy unsliced pan loaves, one white and one wholemeal, and either ask the bakery to slice them horizontally or do it yourself with a bread knife on a day-old loaf, which cuts far more neatly than fresh.
- Brown bread"Brown loaf" here most likely means a plain wholemeal or graham sandwich bread rather than a molasses Boston brown bread or a rye; the recipe does not specify. Contrast of colour is the point, so choose the darkest ordinary sandwich loaf you can find.
- Butter on both sidesThe butter is a moisture barrier that keeps damp fillings from soaking the bread. Use butter softened to spreading consistency, not melted, and take it right to the edges. The two unbuttered sides are the outer faces of the finished loaf.
- Cream cheeseCream cheese of this period was sold in small foil-wrapped bricks and is generally reckoned to have been softer than modern stabilised block cheese. Thin it with a spoonful of cream so it spreads without dragging the bread.
- Damp towelA damp cloth was the pre-plastic way to keep the cut edges from drying. Waxed paper or plastic film does the job better in a modern refrigerator; if you use a cloth, wring it out hard, as a wet towel will make the outer slices sodden.
- Fillings and quantityKeep each layer thin, or the loaf will slide apart when sliced. The recipe gives no yield; how many finger sandwiches you get depends on how many lengthwise slices the half-loaves give up.
- ServingCut the chilled loaf crosswise into half-inch fingers so the stripes show, and serve within a few hours. Assembled sandwiches with egg or cheese fillings should not sit out more than two hours at room temperature.
Ribbon and pinwheel sandwiches belong to the golden age of the American ladies' luncheon and church supper, roughly the 1910s through the 1950s, when soft commercial pan bread and foil-wrapped cream cheese made fussy layered work possible for a home cook with no pastry training. Their appeal was visual: a plain filling became a striped tea sandwich simply by alternating white and wholemeal bread and cutting across the grain of the layers. Collections assembled from members' contributions and sold to raise money are where such show pieces circulated, each credited to the woman who submitted it, and the contributor credit here is at least consistent with that tradition. Sandwich sections are usually the most dated part of such a book, being tied to a particular style of entertaining, and the technique here - butter as a moisture seal, pressing firmly, a long thin knife - is the same one used for the ribbon sandwich loaves iced with cream cheese and served in wedges.