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Lobster Sandwiches
Boston brown bread may be used.
Cut the meat of one cold, boiled lobster into dice. One hour before using, dust with salt, red pepper, and either lemon juice or tarragon vinegar. Near serving time put a layer of the lobster over one piece of bread, cover with another, press the two together, cut in triangles and serve.
A three-ingredient sandwich whose only real technique is the hour-long seasoning of the lobster meat. Everything depends on the lobster being well drained and sharply seasoned, since there is no binder to carry flavor.
- How much lobsterA whole boiled lobster of about 1 to 1 1/4 lb yields roughly 4 to 5 oz of picked meat, enough for three or four rounds of sandwiches. Buy about 1/4 to 1/3 lb of picked cooked lobster meat if you are not cooking your own.
- Red pepperIn American books of this period "red pepper" means cayenne, not paprika and not sweet pepper. A pinch is the intent; the dish should read as faintly hot behind the lemon.
- The hour of seasoningThis is the hinge. Salt, acid and cayenne need time to penetrate lobster meat, which is bland and slightly watery straight from the shell. Keep the bowl covered in the refrigerator for that hour rather than on the counter, and drain off any liquid the salt draws out before you build the sandwiches.
- Boston brown breadThe steamed loaf of rye, cornmeal and wheat flour sweetened with molasses, traditionally steamed in a cylindrical mold and sold in cans well into the twentieth century. It is sweet, dense and damp; cut it thin, no more than a quarter inch, or it overwhelms the lobster. Any firm close-grained bread works if brown bread is unavailable.
- No butter, no mayonnaiseThe recipe gives neither, which leaves the bread liable to go soggy. A thin scrape of softened butter on each slice acts as a moisture barrier and is in keeping with the period.
- Tarragon vinegarStill sold, and worth choosing over lemon here for the anise note against shellfish. If you only have plain white wine vinegar, steep a sprig of tarragon in it for an hour.
- Assembly and holdingPress firmly, then cut with a thin sharp knife, wiping the blade between cuts so the dice do not drag out of the edges. Assemble within half an hour of serving and keep chilled; lobster salad sandwiches deteriorate quickly at room temperature.
The Butterick Cook Book (1911) came from the pattern-and-magazine publisher rather than a cooking school, and its sandwich chapter reflects the moment when the sandwich had shifted from a workingman's lunch to a fixture of teas, receptions and card parties -- hence the instruction to cut in triangles and serve near the last minute. Pairing lobster with Boston brown bread is a New England habit: the steamed molasses loaf, normally the partner of baked beans on a Saturday supper table, was thin-sliced and pressed into service for company sandwiches, often with cream cheese or shellfish. Lobster in this period was no longer the cheap coastal food it had been in the early nineteenth century; canning and rail shipment had made it a fashionable ingredient inland.