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Sardine Canapes
6 portions prepared bread 6 large sardines Juice of 1 lemon Salt Worcestershire sauce Pickled beets 6 large olives 24 thin slices lemon Remove skin and backbone. Flake the sardines with a fork and season with lemon-juice, salt and a few drops of Worcestershire sauce. Spread the prepared bread with this mixture and decorate by placing in the center of each canape a small circle of pickled beet. Cut a slice from the end of a large olive so that it will stand firmly and place this in the center of the beet. A narrow border of finely chopped beet may be placed around the edge of the canape with good effect. Garnish the plate with four thin slices of lemon placed symmetrically.
A cold canapé assembled in minutes, with a decorative scheme that accounts for most of the instructions. The only real cookery is seasoning the fish.
- "Prepared bread"In books of this kind the term generally means bread cut into rounds or fingers, crusts removed, and crisped by toasting or frying in butter, then cooled; the recipe itself does not define it. Any crisp base works; soft bread will go damp under the oiled fish within minutes.
- Large sardinesAlmost certainly tinned sardines, one per canape. Modern tins hold smaller fish, so plan on two or three per round. If they are oil-packed, drain them well before flaking or the topping will slump.
- Skin and backboneBoth are edible, and the bones are the chief source of the calcium sardines are praised for, but they are removed here for a smooth spread. Lift the backbone out with the tip of a knife after splitting the fish lengthwise.
- Seasoning by tasteA whole lemon's juice will thin the mixture considerably and may overwhelm the fish. Add it a little at a time until the flake holds together as a spreadable paste, then salt and Worcestershire to taste.
- The olive and beet trimCutting a flat base on the olive is the point of that step: it stands upright rather than rolling off. Pickled beet should be blotted dry on paper towel, or its liquid will bleed pink into the fish.
- Yield and timingSix canapés, one per person as written. Assemble no more than half an hour before serving and keep them chilled; the bread softens and the beet colour runs if they stand.
- Lemon garnishThe 24 lemon slices are four to a plate, so the recipe assumes six individual service plates rather than one platter. On a single tray, use fewer and space them around the edge.
Canapes of this kind were a staple of the appetizer chapters of American cookbooks of the 1920s and 1930s, a period when the sit-down first course was giving way to something handed round before dinner. Tinned sardines suited the format: shelf-stable, cheap, and available in boned grades. The elaborate decoration here is of a piece with the period's taste for cold appetizers that looked composed -- hence the concentric beet circle, the olive stood on a cut base, and the symmetrically placed lemon. The Delineator was a Butterick fashion magazine.