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Crisco (Tablespoonful whipped cream)
1 tablespoonful whipped cream 1 dozen sardines 1 tomato Sandwiches Salt, pepper, and paprika to taste Lettuce leaves Slices of brown or white bread Bone and skin the sardines, then rub through sieve, add cream, Crisco, pulp of tomato and seasonings and mix well. Spread mixture between slices of brown or white bread and butter, stamp out in rounds, in center of each round force a row of whipped cream seasoned with salt and red pepper, place small stamped out leaves of lettuce round the cream. Sufficient for twelve sandwiches.
The ingredient list as printed is scrambled by the two-column layout of the original page, and the Crisco quantity has dropped out entirely. Work from the method, which names every component in order.
- The missing amountThe instructions call for Crisco but no quantity survives in the list. For a dozen sardines mashed to a paste, one to two tablespoonfuls of solid shortening is the sensible range; more turns the filling greasy and mutes the fish.
- Crisco as a spreadHere it is doing the work of softened butter, binding the sieved fish into a paste. Any solid vegetable shortening behaves the same way, though Crisco was reformulated in 2007 to cut its trans fats. Softened unsalted butter gives a better flavour and no one will object.
- Sieving the sardinesRubbing boned, skinned sardines through a sieve is what makes this a smooth paste rather than a mash. A fine-mesh strainer and a stiff spatula work; a small food processor is faster and gives much the same result.
- Pulp of tomatoThis means the flesh only, with skin and seeds and their liquid discarded. Wet tomato will slacken the paste and soak the bread, so squeeze or drain the pulp before it goes in.
- Stamp out in roundsA plain round cutter, roughly 2 inches, cut through the assembled sandwich. Expect considerable waste; cutting after filling rather than before is what gives the neat sealed edge.
- Forcing the creamThe recipe forces a row of whipped cream in the centre of each round, seasoned with salt and red pepper, with small stamped-out lettuce leaves set around it. Whether the single tablespoonful in the ingredient list is the cream added to the filling or the cream piped on top is not clear from the text as printed.
- TimingWhipped cream on an open surface will slacken and weep fairly quickly. Make and fill the sandwiches ahead, then pipe the cream and set the lettuce shortly before serving.
- YieldTwelve small rounds, which is a plate of tea sandwiches for four to six people rather than a lunch.
This comes from The Story of Crisco, the 1913 promotional cookbook Procter & Gamble issued with its new hydrogenated cottonseed shortening, written up by Marion Harris Neil, credited in the book as a former cookery editor of the Ladies' Home Journal. The book's job was to show that Crisco could stand in for butter and lard everywhere a household used them, which is why it turns up in a sandwich spread where nobody would think to want shortening. The dish itself belongs squarely to the Edwardian tea table: tinned sardines were cheap, respectable and endlessly recommended for savoury fillings, and the fashion for stamped rounds finished with piped cream and cut lettuce reflects a period taste for making small food look constructed. Note that the recipe still says "bread and butter" in the method, though that was also a standard period term for buttered bread.