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The Milwaukee Sandwich
INGREDIENTS. 2 thin rounds of white bread.
I thin round of graham or rye bread. 4 large oysters, broiled or fried.
Breast of cooked chicken, or turkey.
Two slices of crisp bacon.
The book gives the parts and trusts the cook to stack them: this is a three-decker club sandwich, white bread top and bottom with the graham or rye round in the middle. A few things need spelling out.
- Cut the rounds firstA "round" of bread of this period usually just means a thin slice, though in a book that assumes sandwich cutters it may well mean a slice stamped out circular so all three layers match. Either way, cut the bread before you cook anything else.
- Graham breadGraham flour is coarse whole wheat, and graham bread of the period was a slightly sweet whole-wheat loaf. Any decent whole-wheat sandwich bread stands in; the rye alternative the recipe offers works just as well and gives more contrast.
- The oysters are the hingeBroiled or fried, they want to be barely set — two to three minutes over high heat, until the edges just ruffle. Oysters held longer turn to rubber, and four of them in a sandwich will be obvious. Drain them hard on paper before they touch the bread or the whole thing goes soggy.
- No dressing is listedBread for sandwiches of this period was commonly buttered, and butter also seals the crumb against the oyster liquor. Whether any further dressing belongs here the recipe does not say.
- Breast of cooked chicken or turkeyThe recipe assumes the bird is already cooked, sliced thin and cold. Poached breast works but is blander than roast meat.
- BaconBacon of the period was often saltier and more heavily smoked than most supermarket bacon. Cook it fully crisp so it shatters rather than drags the sandwich apart when cut.
- Yield and servingThe quantities make one sandwich. Cut it in halves or quarters through the stack, pin with picks if it is tall, and serve at once — it does not hold.
This comes from Janet McKenzie Hill's Salads, Sandwiches and Chafing-Dish Dainties, generally dated to the turn of the twentieth century, when the club sandwich was still novel enough that layered constructions were routinely named after cities and hotels. The Milwaukee's signature is the oyster: refrigerated rail cars are often said to have carried barreled Eastern oysters west to Great Lakes and inland cities in this period, and oysters had become cheap enough to appear in sandwiches, stews and chafing-dish suppers rather than only on the half shell. Why the sandwich carries Milwaukee's name is not documented, though the graham or rye round in the middle is the one deliberate departure from the standard all-white club. Hill wrote for a readership equipping itself with chafing dishes for luncheons and card parties, which is why the recipe lists parts and assumes the cook already knows the shape of the thing.