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Cheese-and-English-Walnut Sandwiches
INGREDIENTS. ¼ a pound of grated cheese. ¼ a pound of butter. 1/4 a pound of grated cheese. 1/4 a pound of English walnut meats, sliced. Salt and paprica to taste.
Method. - Work the butter to a cream, add the seasonings and the grated cheese gradually; then mix in the nuts, which should be sliced very thin.
Spread the mixture upon bits of bread and press together in pairs. Particularly good made of brownbread and served with a simple vegetable salad!
A compound cheese butter, closer to a potted-cheese spread than to a sliced-cheese sandwich. The proportions are simple once the printer's errors are set aside.
- The ingredient list repeats itselfThe grated cheese appears twice in the list. The quantities were checked against the printed page and read as equal quarter-pounds of butter, grated cheese and walnut meats.
- What a quarter pound comes toButter: one stick, ½ cup. Grated firm cheese: about 1 cup loosely packed. Walnut meats: about 1 cup halves before slicing. The recipe gives no yield; the quantity of spread would fill a good number of small sandwiches.
- Which cheeseAn unqualified "cheese" in an American book of this period usually meant a firm aged cheddar, often sold as American or store cheese. A sharp cheddar works; a young mild block will taste of nothing against the butter.
- Butter temperature is the hingeThe butter must be genuinely soft and creamed to a smooth paste before any cheese goes in, and the cheese must be added a little at a time. Cold butter and cheese dumped together give a crumbly mixture that tears the bread.
- Slicing the nutsSliced very thin, not chopped — split the halves lengthwise with a small sharp knife. Chopped walnuts release more oil and turn the spread muddy, and the point here is thin crisp flakes of nut through a smooth paste.
- PapricaPaprika; in American use of the period this generally meant the mild sweet kind, added for colour and a faint warmth rather than heat. The recipe leaves the quantity to taste.
- Brown breadThe book does not say which brown bread is meant; in an American book of the period this could be the steamed Boston brown bread of rye, cornmeal and molasses, or simply a wholemeal loaf. A dense wholemeal or pumpernickel serves.
- Making aheadThe spread keeps several days refrigerated and is easier to handle after an hour's chilling, but let it come back to cool room temperature before spreading or it will drag.
"English walnut" is an American retail distinction rather than a botanical one: the Persian walnut, Juglans regia, is generally said to have reached the United States through English trade and needed a name to separate it from the native black walnut, which is stronger, oilier and far harder to shell. Sandwiches like this one belong to the era's fashion for the dainty afternoon sandwich, built on a creamed butter base so the filling would hold together in thin bread cut into fancy shapes — the same technique behind the period's potted cheese, anchovy butter and nut butters.