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Fig Sandwiches
- Horace Smith.
CHOP one-fourth a pound of figs very fine, add one-fourth a cup of water, and cook to a smooth paste; add, also, one-third a cup of almonds, blanched, chopped very fine and pounded to a paste with a little rose-water, also the juice of half a lemon. When cold spread the mixture upon lady-fingers or cakelets, white or yellow, press another above the mixture, and serve upon a handsome doylie-covered plate. Raisins, dates or marmalade may be used in the place of the figs.
The marmalade, of course, requires no cooking.
Bread may be used in the place of the cake.
A tea-table sweet rather than a sandwich in the savoury sense: a cooked fig-and-almond paste between lady-fingers. It comes together in about fifteen minutes, and the only real skill is judging when the fig paste is thick enough to spread without soaking the cake.
- The hinge: cook the figs down until stiffA quarter cup of water into a quarter pound of figs is very little liquid, and it should nearly all go. Stir over low heat until the mass holds a furrow behind the spoon; a loose paste will turn lady-fingers to mush within the hour.
- Quantities in modern termsA quarter pound of figs is about 115 g, roughly 6-8 dried figs. A third of a cup of blanched almonds is about 50 g. Cut the hard stem nub off each fig before chopping.
- Which figsImported Smyrna figs were the usual dried fig of the period; Turkish dried figs sold today (and their California descendants, sold as Calimyrna) behave much the same. If yours are leathery rather than pliable, soak them ten minutes in hot water first and count that water as part of the quarter cup.
- Almonds and the mortarA food processor does the pounding, but almonds ground dry will heat and go oily. Pulse them with the rose-water and a spoonful of the cooked fig paste so the mixture stays workable.
- Rose-water is potentModern rose-water varies enormously in strength. Start with a quarter teaspoon, taste, and add more only if it reads as floral rather than soapy.
- Lady-fingers and cakeletsSavoiardi from an Italian grocery are the direct equivalent; "cakelets" means small squares of plain white or sponge cake. Sliced firm white bread, crusts off, is the version the last line offers.
- The substitutionsRaisins and dates need the same brief cooking with water; marmalade is used straight from the jar, as the recipe says, though a thick Seville marmalade works far better here than a runny one.
- Yield and holdingEnough filling for about 12 to 14 sandwiches. Assemble within an hour or two of serving; the paste itself keeps a week covered in the refrigerator and should be brought back to room temperature to spread.
Janet McKenzie Hill compiled this book in the late 1890s out of the world of the Boston Cooking School Magazine, and the sandwich chapter reflects a moment when the afternoon tea sandwich had expanded well past bread and butter. Sweet fillings on cake rather than bread sat comfortably in that category: the point was something small, tidy and eaten from the hand at a reception or a card party, and the doily-covered plate is part of the specification, not decoration on the page. Dried figs and blanched almonds were the reliable pantry sweets of a Northern winter, and rose-water was still a common flavouring in American baking, a survival from the eighteenth century that vanilla extract had largely but not entirely displaced. The Horace Smith at the head of the entry is the English poet, quoted as a chapter epigraph in the manner of the period rather than credited as the author of the dish.