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The Traveler's Lunch Basket
sardines and throw the fish into hot water. In a few minutes they will be free from all grease. Dry in a cloth and remove the skins; pound the sardines in a mortar till reduced to paste; season with pepper and salt and add some tiny pieces of lettuce leaves; spread between thin, buttered slices of bread. Or, chop the sardines fine, squeeze a few drops of lemon juice over them and spread in the usual way.
The text opens mid-sentence: the missing words instruct you to drain the oil from a tin of sardines. What follows is a sound method for a sandwich filling that will not soak through the bread.
- The hinge: rinsing off the oilPouring hot water over drained sardines melts and floats off the packing oil, which is what makes the filling greasy and the bread sodden. Drain thoroughly and blot dry in a cloth or on paper towel before mashing, or the paste will be watery instead.
- Skins and bonesTinned sardines of the period may well have been coarser than many tins sold today; the recipe's instruction to skin them suggests as much. Modern brisling and small sardines have skins and backbones soft enough to mash into the paste unnoticed, and the bones are a useful source of calcium; remove them only if you dislike the texture.
- Mortar or machineA small food processor does in seconds what the mortar does in several minutes, but pulse rather than run it — sardines turn to a slack purée quickly. A fork against the side of a bowl gives the best texture for two tins or fewer.
- SeasoningTinned sardines are already salted, so taste before adding any. Pepper, a squeeze of lemon and a scrape of mustard are enough; the lemon version given at the end of the recipe is the fresher of the two.
- Lettuce"Tiny pieces of lettuce leaves" means shredded, not whole leaves, so the sandwich cuts cleanly and packs flat. Add it only just before spreading, since salt draws water out of shredded lettuce within the hour.
- Bread and butterThe butter is structural, not decorative: a thin, complete film on each slice keeps the fish oil and lemon juice out of the crumb. Use a close-textured white or wholemeal loaf, sliced thin, and butter it soft enough to spread without tearing.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantities. As a guide, one standard 3.75 oz (about 106 g) tin will make roughly four rounds of sandwiches, cut into fingers or triangles for a basket.
- KeepingFor actual travel, make them the morning of and wrap tightly; oily fish fillings pick up odours and dry at the edges. Sardine sandwiches are best eaten within a few hours and should not sit warm all day.
Tinned sardines were one of the first widely available convenience proteins, cheap, shelf-stable and already cooked, and by the early 1910s they were a staple of picnic baskets, railway lunches and the chafing-dish supper. A traveler's lunch basket had to hold food that survived hours unrefrigerated in a hamper, which is why cured and tinned fish, hard cheese and potted meats tended to be preferred over anything fresh. The trick of scalding away the packing oil belongs to an era when tinned fish came in heavy, sometimes rancid-tasting oil that no cook wanted near a buttered slice; better modern packing in olive oil has made the step optional, though it still produces a lighter, drier paste.