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Sandwiches
It is sometimes advisable to utilize the cut slices of fresh bread that are left over by making them into sandwiches at once, and serving them the same day, rather than putting them in the breadbox and running the risk of overlooking them. Pack them in a bowl, cover with a napkin dipped in hot water and wrung out very dry, and put a plate over them. This will keep them perfectly fresh for some hours. Many little dainty bits can be used in their preparation. The following combinations will be found acceptable: No. 1 Make a paste of cooked chicken livers with melted butter. Add lemon-juice, cayenne, salt, and chopped olives. Spread between thin slices of white bread. These sandwiches are good without the olives.
No. 2 Moisten flaked smoked whitefish with butter, add chopped sour cucumber pickles, season with mustard paste and a dash of cayenne, and use as a sandwich filling with white bread.
No. 3 Finely minced salmon and cucumber mixed with salad dressing.
No. 4 Sardines and hard-cooked egg yolk. Remove the skin and bones from the sardines, mash them to a paste with the egg, and season with salt, pepper, and a little lemon-juice.
No. 5 Equal quantities of grated cheese and butter creamed together. Spread this on the bread and sprinkle with minced watercress.
No. 6 Finely chopped peanuts and celery mixed with salad dressing.
No. 7 Mix well together chopped nuts and raisins and a little lemon-juice. Heat through, let cool, and spread on Graham crackers. Press together lightly, and crisp in moderate oven.
A Use for Left-over Fondant In making candy from fondant, put aside all scrapings from utensils used. These will keep indefinitely in a covered glass jar in cool, dry place, and when melted with a very little hot water, make good icing for small cakes, etc. No strong flavors, as peppermint or wintergreen, should be used.
Seven fillings plus a note on fondant scraps, all built around bread that would otherwise stale. A few of the ingredients and terms need translating.
- The damp-napkin trickWringing a cloth out of hot water and laying it over covered bread is sound: it keeps the humidity up without wetting the slices. A plate on top seals it. Modern equivalent is a sealed box with a barely damp towel inside, good for a few hours only, not overnight.
- "Salad dressing" in Nos. 3 and 6In American books of this period this usually means a cooked or boiled dressing thickened with egg and flour and sharpened with vinegar, not the bottled sweet sort. Mayonnaise works and is closer in richness; use enough only to bind, or the filling soaks the bread.
- Chicken livers, No. 1Cook them all the way through until no pink remains at the centre before mashing with butter. Livers concentrate whatever the bird was carrying, and a paste made from underdone liver is the one real risk in this list.
- Smoked whitefish, No. 2Hot-smoked Great Lakes whitefish, sold ready to eat, skin and pin bones removed. Smoked trout or mackerel substitutes cleanly. "Sour cucumber pickles" are brine- or vinegar-cured sour pickles rather than sweet gherkins; a dill pickle is the nearest thing on a modern shelf. "Mustard paste" is simply prepared mustard.
- Sardines and egg yolk, No. 4Tinned sardines packed in oil, drained. The recipe uses only the hard-cooked yolk, which gives a smoother, less watery paste than whole egg; save the white for another filling.
- Moderate oven, No. 7A moderate oven is generally reckoned at about 350 to 375F. The crisping is brief, only long enough to dry the crackers and set the filling. Watch them, as the raisins scorch quickly at the edges.
- QuantitiesNone are given, which is normal for a sandwich list. As a working ratio, about a cup of filling spreads roughly a dozen rounds cut from thin-sliced bread.
- Fondant scrapingsFondant is sugar, water and usually a little corn syrup or cream of tartar, so it keeps well sealed and dry. Melted with a few drops of hot water over low heat it thins to a pouring glaze; overheating turns it grainy. The warning about peppermint and wintergreen is practical, since those flavours carry over and will fight with a plain cake.
Fancy sandwiches were fashionable in the first decades of the twentieth century -- afternoon tea, card parties, luncheon plates -- and cookbooks of the period carry long lists of fillings meant to look deliberate rather than thrifty. The combinations here read as a snapshot of what an American pantry held: tinned sardines, smoked whitefish from the Great Lakes, watercress, peanuts, and cheese creamed with butter to make it spreadable in the days before processed cheese spreads were common.