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Cheese and Olive Canapes
6 portions prepared bread 3 tablespoons cream cheese Olives stuffed with pimientos Garnish of red pepper or pickled beet Spread on the prepared bread a paste made by mixing equal proportions of cream cheese and chopped stuffed olives. Garnish with a quarter-inch border of the chopped olives and a star of red pepper or pickled beet in the center of each.
A canapé of the type that ran through American entertaining books between the wars: a firm base, a spread, and a decorative finish. The whole thing hinges on the base staying crisp.
- "Prepared bread"In books of this type the base is thin firm white bread, crusts removed, cut into small shapes and made crisp by toasting, drying or sauteing in butter; the recipe itself does not spell out the method. Untoasted bread will go damp under the cheese.
- QuantitiesThree tablespoons of cream cheese with an equal quantity of chopped olives gives roughly six tablespoons of paste, about a tablespoon per portion across the six. Scale up in that one-to-one ratio for a larger tray.
- The cream cheeseCream cheese of the period was generally sold fresh and softer than a modern block. Let a block-style cheese come fully to room temperature and beat it smooth before adding the olives, or add a teaspoon of cream to bring it to a spreadable paste.
- Drain the olivesChop the stuffed olives and blot them on a towel before mixing. Brine carried into the cheese loosens the paste and it will slump off the edges of the bread.
- SeasoningNo salt is called for, and none is needed — the olives supply it. A grind of black pepper or a little paprika is in keeping.
- The garnish"Red pepper" here is sweet pimiento or red bell pepper, not cayenne. Cut the star from a drained canned pimiento or from pickled beet with the tip of a knife or a small aspic cutter.
- Timing and yieldSix portions as written; the recipe does not say how many pieces make a portion. Assemble no more than an hour ahead and keep covered and chilled; the bread softens steadily once spread.
Canapes of this kind belong to the era when a meal might open with something small eaten in the hand, and cookbooks of the 1920s and 1930s gave considerable space to the geometry of them -- bread cut into rounds and crescents, spreads worked into borders, a single contrasting dot at the center. The New Delineator Recipes came out of The Delineator, a Butterick magazine that began life as a pattern publication. Pimiento-stuffed olives, canned and widely available in the United States by that point, were a staple of the appetizer chapter because they delivered salt, color and shape in one ingredient.