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Celery Sandwiches
Mix one cup finely shredded celery, one fourth cup finely chopped nuts, and one fourth cup chopped olives. Moisten with mayonnaise and spread between thin slices of brown bread.
Cheese Sandwiches No. I Mix one cream cheese with an equal amount of chopped walnuts; add a few grains of cayenne, season with salt, and moisten with cream. Use for a filling for graham sandwiches. Cheese Sandwiches No. 2 Pound one quarter pound American cheese with two tablespoons butter, a few grains cayenne, and one teaspoon mustard; moisten with tarragon vinegar, and spread between thin slices of white bread.
Cheese Sandwiches No. 3 Mix one cream cheese with an equal amount of chopped pimolas; season with salt and cayenne, and moisten with cream or mayonnaise.
Use for a filling for white or brown bread sandwiches. Chicken Sandwiches No. I Mix one cup chopped chicken with one fourth cup mayonnaise. Spread between thin slices of buttered bread. Chicken Sandwiches No. 2 Mix one cup chopped chicken with one cup chopped almonds; moisten with cream; season with salt and paprika. Use for filling for entire wheat bread sandwiches.
A run of sandwich fillings from the salad chapter, written when a "sandwich" meant thin crustless bread and a spreadable filling rather than a meal. The measurements are sound; it is the ingredient names that need translating.
- "One cream cheese"This means one retail package of the period, about 3 ounces of soft, unripened cheese sold in foil. Use roughly 3 ounces, with an equal volume of nuts or olives.
- PimolasA trade name for green olives stuffed with pimiento, common on American grocery shelves in the early 1900s. Ordinary pimiento-stuffed green olives are the direct replacement.
- "American cheese"In 1907 this meant a firm domestic factory cheddar, not the processed slice. Use a medium or sharp cheddar; processed cheese will not pound into a paste with butter in the way intended.
- Pounding the cheddarPounding the cheese -- The pounding is what makes filling No. 2 spreadable; the recipe does not say what tool to use. A food processor does it faster, but keep the butter cool and add the tarragon vinegar a few drops at a time or the paste breaks.
- "A few grains of cayenne"A pinch, no more than an eighth teaspoon.
- Graham and entire wheat breadGraham bread is made with coarse unsifted whole wheat flour; "entire wheat" is simply whole wheat. Either can be replaced by a close-crumbed whole wheat sandwich loaf, sliced thin.
- Moistening with creamCream here is heavy or light dairy cream, added by the spoonful only until the mixture spreads. Overshooting makes a filling that soaks through thin bread within the hour.
- Yield and holdingEach cup of filling covers roughly six to eight sandwiches cut in halves or fingers. The chicken and cream cheese versions are perishable; assemble close to serving and keep refrigerated, covered with a damp cloth to stop the edges drying.
Lowney's Cook Book appeared in 1907 under the name of a Boston chocolate manufacturer, and it shares much with the conventions of the Boston Cooking School: measurement by cup and spoon, thin bread, and fillings built on mayonnaise. Filed under salads rather than a chapter of their own, these sandwiches belong to the age of the ladies' luncheon and the afternoon reception, when chopped celery, nuts and stuffed olives bound with dressing were served as often between bread as on a lettuce leaf. The repeated use of cream cheese may reflect how recently it had become a reliable commercial product in the northeastern United States, sold in small foil-wrapped cakes rather than made at home, and the appearance of tarragon vinegar and paprika marks the same period's taste for mildly "continental" seasonings in otherwise plain American cooking.