Cheese-Sticks
Cut stale bread in long, narrow strips, spread with butter or butter substitute and then with a thick coating of grated cheese. Place in the oven until brown. Crackers may be treated in a similar manner. These should be passed when the soup is served.
Garnishes should be simple, appropriate, easy to prepare, but they should not be used to disguise deficiencies or poor qualities of any dish. Edible garnishes are more appropriate than those that are used merely for appearance. At least one-third of a dish should be left free of garnish. The garnish should be so placed that it does not interfere with the service. With a few exceptions, such as candied or maraschino cherries, sweet pickles or preserved whole currants, strawberries or cranberries, sweets are not used to garnish savory dishes. Toast or puff pastes should not, as a rule, be used on the same dish with potatoes.
A soup accompaniment rather than a dish in its own right: buttered bread strips under grated cheese, crisped in the oven. The original gives no temperature, no timing and no quantities, so the judgment is all in the browning.
- Oven heatThe original gives no setting. A moderate oven, around 375F on a sheet pan for roughly 8 to 12 minutes, will melt and colour the cheese while the bread dries through; a hotter oven risks colouring the cheese before the strip has firmed up.
- Why stale breadDay-old bread cuts into clean strips and dries to a crisp stick; fresh bread compresses under the knife and steams rather than toasts. Cut about half an inch wide and three to four inches long.
- "Butter substitute"In a book of this era that means margarine or a vegetable shortening, then a routine economy. Butter gives better flavour and browning; any solid fat works.
- Cheese to use"Grated cheese" here implies a dry hard cheese; Cheddar and Parmesan were both available to American cooks of the period. Pre-shredded cheese contains anti-caking starch and browns less evenly; grate it yourself.
- QuantitiesThe original gives none. Figure roughly 2 oz grated cheese and 2 tablespoons softened fat to four slices of bread, enough to pass with soup for four to six.
- CrackersSaltines or water biscuits need far less time, 4 to 6 minutes, and scorch quickly at the edges. Watch them rather than timing them.
- Timing to the mealThese are best warm and lose crispness within the hour. Bake them while the soup is heating and pass them straight from the oven.
Cheese-sticks belong to the long tradition of soup "accompaniments" -- croutons, cheese straws, bread sticks, crisped crackers -- that American cookbooks of the 1920s and 30s treated as a regular part of a properly served first course. The New Delineator Recipes came out of the Delineator, a Butterick magazine that reached a broad middle-class readership. The frugality is real: this is a use for the ends of a loaf, dressed up enough to carry to the table. The mention of a "butter substitute" alongside butter, without comment, marks the period as well as anything -- by this date margarine was an unremarkable pantry item, and recipe writers listed it as an equal option.