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Sandwiches of Goose's Fat Liver
Take a square loaf of bread, remove all the crust, cut the crumb into slices about an eighth of an inch thick, butter them well and cover half of them with potted fat liver; place the other half on top of them with the butter inside, press slightly together and cut them up into fingers two and one-half fingers long by one and one-half inches wide.
A tea-sandwich formula rather than a cooked dish: the whole thing rests on cold butter, cold pâté and a very sharp knife. Read "potted fat liver" as foie gras, either a whole-lobe terrine or a good pâté de foie gras.
- Potted fat liverRead this as goose foie gras packed in a terrine or tin, of the kind then imported from France and sealed under its own fat. Any smooth foie gras terrine or mousse works; a coarse country pate is a different thing and will not spread thinly enough.
- The measurement that is garbled"Two and one-half fingers long by one and one-half inches wide" mixes two systems. A finger's breadth was conventionally reckoned at roughly three-quarters of an inch, though the text is ambiguous. Cutting to about 2 1/2 by 1 1/2 inches gives workable proportions.
- Square loafMost likely a pain de mie or sandwich loaf baked in a lidded pan, so the crumb is fine, tight and slices without tearing. A rustic open-crumb loaf will let the butter and liver through.
- Eighth-inch slicesThinner than most bread slicers will cut. Chill the crustless loaf, use a long serrated knife, and slice lengthwise down the loaf rather than crosswise for fewer, longer sheets.
- Butter on both facesNot a garnish. The butter seals the crumb so the liver's fat does not soak in and turn the bread grey. Use it soft enough to spread without dragging, and butter to the very edges.
- Temperature is the hingeFoie gras at room temperature smears; at refrigerator temperature it slices and spreads cleanly. Assemble cold, press lightly, then chill the sandwiches before cutting them into fingers.
- AvailabilityFoie gras is restricted or banned from sale in some jurisdictions, including at times California. A duck or chicken liver mousse behaves the same way on the bread if foie gras is not available to you.
Oscar Tschirky ran the Waldorf's dining rooms from 1893 and his 1896 book records the hotel's repertoire at the moment American luxury dining was still spoken in French. Fattened goose liver reached New York as an import: pâté de foie gras came in tins and stoneware terrines sealed under fat, a trade generally traced to the Strasbourg pâté-makers of the late eighteenth century, and its arrival by steamer is why the recipe assumes the liver is already "potted" rather than telling anyone how to cook one. Sandwiches like these belonged to the ball supper and the afternoon reception rather than to a meal — crustless, buttered on both faces, cut into fingers small enough to eat standing with a glass in the other hand — and the section they sit in is essentially a catalogue of such fillings, from watercress to caviare.