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Cheese-and-Bar-le-Duc Currant Sandwiches
Spread wheat bread, prepared for sandwiches, with cream cheese; put two or three currants and a little syrup on each piece of bread, and press two pieces together. These may be varied by using sliced maraschino cherries. Either the currants or sliced cherries with a little of the syrup may be mixed with the cheese and then spread upon the bread. Bar-le-Duc currants are imported from France in tiny glasses. The seeds have been removed from the currants, which are cooked in honey.
A tea sandwich rather than a lunch one: two thin slices, soft cheese, and a spoonful of preserve. The only real difficulties are sourcing the currants and keeping the syrup out of the bread.
- "Prepared for sandwiches"In this period that generally meant a close-grained loaf sliced thin with the crusts cut away, and the slices kept covered so they do not dry; the recipe itself does not spell this out. A day-old sandwich loaf cuts far more cleanly than a fresh one.
- Bar-le-Duc currantsThe genuine article is a French preserve of whole white or red currants, each seeded by hand, suspended in a light honey or sugar syrup. It is still made and still sold in small jars; if you cannot find it, a good whole-fruit red currant preserve is the nearest thing, though the intact berries are the point.
- Keeping the bread drySpread the cheese all the way to the edges before adding fruit and syrup. The cheese acts as a seal; syrup laid straight on bread will soak through within the hour.
- Cream cheese of the periodAround 1900 this meant a fresh, soft, unstabilised cheese much closer to Neufchâtel than to modern block cream cheese. Beat modern cream cheese with a spoonful of cream to loosen it, or use mascarpone, so it spreads without tearing the thin slices.
- Maraschino cherriesThe variation most likely meant marasca cherries preserved in maraschino liqueur, dark and tart, though cheaper imitation cherries were already sold in America by this date. Today's bright red brined cherries are a different product; Italian or Luxardo-style cherries in syrup come closer to the original.
- Mixed versus layeredMashing the fruit into the cheese, the second method given, is more stable and better for sandwiches made ahead. Whole currants laid on the cheese look far better but should be assembled close to serving.
- Yield and servingFigure two slices of bread and about a tablespoon of filling per sandwich, cut into two triangles or three fingers. Six to eight sandwiches will serve a tea table of four alongside one savoury sandwich.
Bar-le-Duc, in Lorraine, has been known for seeded currant preserve since at least the medieval period, and the town's confectioners traditionally removed the seeds from each berry with the sharpened tip of a goose quill so the fruit stayed whole in the syrup. By the late nineteenth century the little jars were a standard luxury import in American cities, and cookbooks of this era treat them as a shorthand for refinement, much as they do imported anchovies or Roquefort. Their pairing with fresh cream cheese belongs to the same moment: commercially made soft cheese had become reliably available, and the tea table — thin bread, sweet filling, small portions — gave American hostesses a use for both. The recipe's closing lines, explaining what Bar-le-Duc actually is, suggest the author expected many readers to be meeting it for the first time.