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Harlequin Sandwiches, No. 2
Spread the brownbread with butter and cheese creamed together, and the white bread with butter, then with cucumber, chopped fine and seasoned with French dressing, to which a few drops of onion juice have been added.
A two-tone sandwich built on contrast: a savory cheese butter on dark bread, a dressed cucumber on white. The recipe assumes you know the assembly conventions of a 1900s tea table, so a few things need filling in.
- Drain the cucumber firstThis is the hinge. Chopped cucumber sheds a great deal of water once dressed, and the white bread will be sodden within minutes. Salt the chopped cucumber lightly, let it sit in a sieve 20-30 minutes, press dry, then dress it just before spreading.
- What brown bread means hereIn an American book of this date, 'brown bread' might mean steamed Boston brown bread (rye, cornmeal and graham with molasses), though for sandwiches a plain graham or whole-wheat loaf is the more likely reading. A dense whole-wheat sandwich loaf is the easiest stand-in.
- Butter and cheese creamed togetherSoftened butter worked smooth with cheese to a spreadable paste. Either a fresh soft cheese (Neufchatel or packaged cream cheese, sold since the 1880s) or finely grated dry cheese beaten into the butter would suit. The recipe gives no proportions or seasoning; roughly equal parts with salt and a little paprika or cayenne is a modern suggestion.
- French dressingNot the sweet orange bottled dressing. In 1900 it meant oil and vinegar with salt and pepper, in proportions ranging in period recipes from about two-to-one to four-to-one, mixed in a bowl and used immediately.
- Onion juiceGrate a halved onion on the fine side of a box grater and press the pulp through a small sieve, or squeeze a wedge in a garlic press. A few drops is literal -- it is there for background pungency, not onion flavor.
- AssemblyThe name implies alternating layers so the cut face shows dark and light stripes: brown, white, brown. Such stacks were commonly pressed under a weighted board, chilled, then trimmed of crusts and cut into fingers or small squares. The recipe itself does not specify the arrangement.
- Timing and yieldBest made shortly before serving and kept covered with a damp cloth. The recipe gives no quantities or yield; six slices of bread and about one medium cucumber make a modest plateful of finger sandwiches.
Harlequin sandwiches are generally said to take their name from the diamond-patterned costume of the commedia dell'arte character, which by the late nineteenth century was familiar from pantomime and circus; the association is a traditional one rather than a documented derivation, and cooks applied the word to any striped or checkered arrangement of light and dark bread. Fancy sandwiches of this kind belong to the era of the afternoon tea and the ladies' luncheon, when the sandwich shifted from portable working food to something cut small, crustless and arranged for effect. Janet McKenzie Hill, who edited the Boston Cooking School Magazine, collected dozens of such variations, numbering them (No. 1, No. 2) rather than naming them.