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Sandwiches (Dip the bread in beaten egg)
Dip the bread in beaten egg, seasoned with salt and sauté to a rich brown in hot butter. Roll the oysters in grated bread crumbs (centre of the loaf) and broil them, or "egg and bread" them, and fry in deep fat. Lay the first slice of bread on a plate over two or three lettuce leaves, put the oysters on the bread, a grating of horseradish on each oyster; cover with the graham or rye bread; on this lay the chicken or turkey cut in thin slices, season with salt and pepper, put on the bacon, and cover with the other slice of bread. On top of the sandwich lay a slice of lemon cut square, and about this dispose the pickles and radishes, to form a star. Serve the tomato on a lettuce leaf at the side. Cut out the hard centre from the tomato and fill the opening with sauce tartare. In making this sauce, add to mayonnaise or boiled dressing, onion, olives, sweet pickles and celery, chopped fine and squeezed dry in a cloth.
This is the closing half of a layered club-style sandwich, and it reads as instructions to a cook who already has the components lined up: three slices of bread, oysters, bacon, cold roast chicken or turkey, tomato, pickles and radishes. Work out your mise en place first, because the assembly happens fast once the bread comes out of the butter.
- What the sandwich actually containsOne slice of white bread dipped in egg and fried, a slice of graham or rye, and a third slice on top, with oysters, horseradish, sliced poultry and bacon between. It builds a single generous open plate serving, not a platter for four.
- The bacon is assumed cookedNothing in the text says to cook it, because a period kitchen took that for granted. Broil or pan-fry it crisp and drain it before it goes in, or the layers slide apart.
- Oyster timing is the hingeBroiled, shucked oysters need only two to three minutes, until the edges ruffle and the flesh firms. Breaded and deep-fried at 375F they take about the same. Longer and they shrink to rubber and weep liquid into the bread.
- "Egg and bread" themThe period shorthand for dipping in beaten egg and then rolling in crumbs. The instruction to use crumbs from "the centre of the loaf" means soft white crumb rather than dried crust, which browns faster and coarser.
- Deep fatThe original says only "fry in deep fat" and gives no temperature; use 375F and fry in small batches so the oil does not crash. Oysters hold a lot of water and will drop the temperature quickly.
- Horseradish"A grating of horseradish" means fresh root, grated at the last minute. Bottled prepared horseradish is packed in vinegar and much milder; use about a quarter teaspoon per oyster if that is what you have.
- Graham breadA slightly sweet wheatmeal loaf, close in character to a modern whole-wheat sandwich bread. Any dense whole-grain slice works; the point is a contrast in flavor against the fried white slice below.
- Sauce tartareThe chopped onion, olives, sweet pickle and celery must be squeezed dry in a cloth as directed, or the sauce loosens and runs out of the hollowed tomato. If you are making the mayonnaise from scratch and serving it uncooked, use pasteurized eggs; the boiled dressing the author offers as an alternative avoids the question entirely.
- The garnish is structuralThe square-cut lemon slice on top with pickles and radishes arranged around it in a star is presentation in the 1900 manner. Skip it if you like, but the sandwich was designed to be looked at before it was eaten.
This comes from Janet McKenzie Hill's Salads, Sandwiches and Chafing-Dish Dainties, published in 1899; Hill was a graduate of the Boston Cooking School and editor of the Boston Cooking School Magazine, and the book belongs to the period when the club sandwich was still a novelty worth describing at length. The three-decker with bacon and cold poultry is generally traced to American clubs and hotel dining rooms of the 1890s; what dates this version is the oysters, which were cheap, ubiquitous and treated as an everyday protein along the whole Atlantic seaboard before overfishing and pollution closed the great beds. Hill's book was aimed at hostesses giving light lunches and late suppers, which explains the elaborate plating: the star of pickles and radishes, the lemon squared off with a knife, the tomato hollowed and filled with tartare sauce. The food is simple, and nearly all the work is in the arrangement.