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Jelly Sandwiches
Spread zephyrettes with quince jelly and sprinkle with chopped English walnut meat. Place a zephyrette over each and press together.
A two-ingredient assembly whose only obstacle is that the cracker it names no longer exists under that name.
- ZephyrettesA very thin, crisp plain cracker familiar to readers in Fannie Farmer's day, apparently sold under that trade name, and no longer found under it. Any thin plain cracker works: water crackers, or thin unsalted soda crackers.
- Quince jellyFirm-setting and more astringent than most modern fruit jellies. If you substitute, use a firm-set jelly rather than a jam or preserve; a loose one will soak into the wafers.
- English walnutThe ordinary walnut of the supermarket, so named to distinguish it from the American black walnut, which is stronger and more resinous. Chop fine and press them into the jelly so they hold.
- Assemble lateThese are meant to be made just before serving. Crackers spread with jelly go limp fast, and there is no way to rescue them once softened.
- YieldThe original gives none. Figure roughly a third of a cup of jelly and a quarter cup of chopped nuts for two dozen sandwiches.
- Where it belongsSweet, not savory, despite its place in the sandwich chapter. Suited to a tea or coffee table, or alongside fruit salad or ice cream.
This sits in the sandwich chapter of a book from an era when a "sandwich" could be almost anything served between two thin things, and tea-table sandwiches were frequently sweet as well as savory. Quinces are high in pectin and set very firm, which made quince jelly a mainstay of American home preserving; the fruit later became scarce in commercial markets and has returned mainly as a specialty item. The reliance on the name Zephyrettes is characteristic of the period: cookbooks of the 1890s and 1900s often assumed the reader knew the products on a grocer's shelf, and this is one of the surest ways such recipes go stale, since the instruction survives perfectly while the ingredient it names does not.