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Deviled Ham Sandwiches
1 can deviled ham. 1 cup chopped pecans. 3 sticks celery, cut fine. 1/2 cup dressing.
Mix all together and spread between bread. Any meat or cold chicken may be used with nuts and dressing for sandwiches.
A tearoom-style filling that needs no cooking. The only real decisions are what "dressing" means and how finely everything is cut.
- "Dressing"In a 1920 sandwich chapter this is mayonnaise or a cooked boiled dressing, not a vinaigrette. Half a cup is generous for one small can of ham plus celery and nuts; start with a third and add more only if the mix will not hold together.
- Canned deviled hamStill sold, in roughly 4 to 4.5 oz tins. It is finely ground cured ham, already salty and spiced with mustard and other seasonings, so little or no extra seasoning is wanted.
- "3 sticks celery"Sticks means ribs from the head, not the whole bunch. Three ribs, minced small, gives roughly a cup or more depending on their size, which is a lot of celery against one small can of ham.
- PecansA full cup of chopped pecans will dominate a single small tin of ham. Toasting them briefly in a dry pan sharpens the flavor and keeps them from tasting soft against the paste.
- TextureChop the celery and nuts finer than seems necessary. Coarse pieces tear soft sandwich bread and push the filling out at the edges.
- YieldAs written the filling comes to something like three cups, enough for six to ten sandwiches depending on how thickly it is spread, or four small trimmed tea sandwiches cut from each.
- HoldingThe filling keeps a day covered in the refrigerator, but the celery weeps and the nuts soften. Mix ahead if you like; spread shortly before serving.
"Deviled" had meant sharply seasoned with mustard and cayenne since the eighteenth century, and by the time Mrs. Wilson was writing for Philadelphia readers around 1920 it had become a shelf-stable product: potted spiced ham in a small tin, of which the Underwood devil is generally traced to the years just after the Civil War and is often said to be among the oldest registered food trademarks in the United States. That tin is why this entry looks so unlike a nineteenth-century sandwich recipe -- there is no boiling, pounding or sieving of meat, only opening and stirring. The pecans and celery are pure American tearoom taste of the period, when crunch and a bound dressing turned any leftover protein into an afternoon sandwich, and Wilson says as much in her closing line: the formula is a template, not a dish.