Celery and Onion Sandwiches

Two sandwich fillings run together here, both written in the shorthand of a period cookbook that assumed the reader already knew what "dressing" meant.

• "Dressing" means mayonnaise or boiled dressingIn a cookbook of this period the word usually indicates mayonnaise or a cooked flour-and-egg salad dressing rather than a vinaigrette. Use just enough to bind — roughly 2 to 3 tablespoons per cup of chopped vegetables — or the bread turns soggy within minutes.
• Onion quantityNo proportion is given, and raw onion will dominate. One part finely minced onion to four or five parts celery is a workable ratio; sweet or green onion is gentler than a yellow cooking onion.
• Cut fine means very fineCelery strings will pull the whole filling out of the sandwich in one bite. Chop to about 1/8 inch, or pulse briefly, and blot the celery dry before mixing.
• Crystallized pineapple and gingerBoth are still sold as candied fruit, usually in the baking aisle or at a bulk counter. The "10 cts." and "15 cts." are prices rather than weights, and the recipe asks for half again as much ginger as pineapple; small handfuls of each, with the ginger the larger, will follow the proportion. The citron is specified as the "same amount."
• Home-made citronCitron here is candied citron peel, thick-skinned and resinous. Commercial candied citron or mixed candied peel substitutes directly; candied lemon peel is the closest single stand-in.
• Grinding the sweet fillingA food processor does the work of the old meat grinder, but the candied fruit is sticky and will clump. Pulse in short bursts, and if it seizes into a mass, a teaspoon of the softened butter loosens it.
• YieldNeither filling is given a quantity, so judge by eye; the sweet one, ground from three small purchases, will fill a few sandwiches. The recipe specifies only that the filling be spread between buttered bread; how it is cut is left to the cook.