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Vineland Sandwich
Spread rye bread (or Scandinavian "hard bread") with butter, cover with tasty smoked Norwegian sardines. Cover with sauerkraut and sprinkle with black pepper (freshly ground, if possible). Top with second slice of bread. Eat toasted or plain.
A cold-pantry sandwich built from three shelf-stable items, which is why it turns up in a camp cookbook. The only thing that will ruin it is wet sauerkraut.
- Drain the kraut hardSqueeze the sauerkraut in your fist or press it in a sieve until it stops dripping. Straight from the jar it will soak the bread through in a couple of minutes, and there is no recovering from that.
- What the sardines are"Smoked Norwegian sardines" means the small canned brisling packed in oil, still sold in flat tins. Lift them out and let them drain a moment; the oil in the tin is generous and will pool. A standard small tin (around 3.75 oz) should stretch to about two sandwiches, depending on how thickly you lay the fish.
- Hard breadScandinavian hard bread is knekkebrød or flatbrød -- the dry crispbread, not a soft rye. It can crack if you press two slices together, so with hard bread you may prefer it open-faced, eaten with a fork or in the hand over a plate, though the recipe as written calls for a second slice on top.
- Butter is structuralThe butter is not just flavour; it seals the crumb against the kraut brine and the sardine oil. Spread it to the edges and use it at soft room temperature so you are not tearing the bread.
- If you toast itThe recipe says only "toasted or plain" and gives no method. If you toast the assembled sandwich, butter the outside faces and griddle it in a dry pan over medium heat until the bread crusts; watch it, as timing will depend on the bread. The sardines are already cooked, so you are only after heat and colour.
- Pepper and what elseFreshly ground black pepper is the only seasoning called for and it does real work against the oily fish. A little coarse mustard or a few thin rings of raw onion sit comfortably in the same sandwich if you want them.
- YieldAs written, one sandwich. Everything scales directly.
The name is often taken as a nod to Vinland, the Norse name recorded in the Icelandic sagas for the lands they reached west of Greenland -- an apt enough label for a sandwich of Norwegian sardines and Scandinavian crispbread, though nothing in the recipe confirms the connection and Vineland is also an American place name. The construction belongs to a family of recipes built from tinned and jarred goods: Norwegian canned brisling was an established export by the turn of the twentieth century, crispbread keeps for months without refrigeration, and sauerkraut is preserved by its own acidity. Nothing in the sandwich needs a cooler, a fire or a pan, and the toasting is offered as an option rather than a step.