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Italian Sandwiches
1/2 lb. dried beef (scald if very salt) 1/4 lb. American Cheese 1 pt. canned tomatoes Put beef and cheese through meat grinder. Add tomatoes from which all the juice has been strained, and cook until thick. When cold, use as a filling for bread sandwiches with lettuce leaf.
— Mrs. Lavinia C. Carpenter
A community-cookbook sandwich spread built from three shelf-stable staples. The whole success of it is in the moisture: too much tomato liquid and it will soak the bread.
- Drain the tomatoes hardA pint of canned tomatoes is about 2 cups; press the pulp in a sieve and discard the juice, or the mixture will never thicken. Reserve nothing — the recipe wants pulp only.
- Dried beefSold as sliced chipped or pressed beef, often in jars. Modern brands may be less harshly cured than older barrel-cured beef, but they are still salty; taste a slice first and pour boiling water over it if it is aggressively salty.
- "American Cheese"In this period the phrase meant plain domestic cheddar, not the processed slices. Use 4 oz of a mild to medium block cheddar.
- GrinderA food processor does the same job in a few pulses. Aim for a coarse mince, not a paste, so the filling keeps some texture.
- Cooking it downTen to fifteen minutes over medium-low heat, stirring, until the mass holds a line when a spoon is drawn through it. Keep the heat gentle once the cheese melts or it will break and go greasy.
- Yield and keepingMakes something in the region of 1 1/2 to 2 cups, enough for perhaps six sandwiches. Chill it thoroughly before spreading — warm, it is loose; cold, it slices. Treat it as any cooked meat spread and use within three or four days.
- SeasoningNo salt or pepper is listed because the beef and cheese carry it. Black pepper and a little grated onion are period-appropriate additions if the batch tastes flat.
The name says less about Italy than about how American cooks of the early twentieth century used the label: "Italian" on a church-supper recipe card is often said to have signaled canned tomatoes and cheese rather than any particular regional dish. The Philathea Cook Book came out of the Philathea movement, the young women's counterpart to the Baraca Bible classes for young men that spread through Protestant Sunday schools from the 1890s onward, and its contributions are signed by individual members — here Mrs. Lavinia C. Carpenter. Recipes like this one belong to the era when dried beef, block cheese and canned tomatoes were the three things a household could count on having, and the sandwich filling made from them stretched a half pound of meat across six lunches.