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Almond Sandwich No. 3
On thin slices of buttered Boston brown bread sprinkle finely chopped almonds, cover with another slice of bread, and cut in squares.
A tea sandwich with three components, which means each one has to be right. The bread is the part most likely to give trouble now.
- Boston brown breadA steamed, not baked, loaf of rye flour, cornmeal and wheat flour sweetened with molasses. It is still sold in cans in New England supermarkets, though the canned kind slices into rounds, which sit awkwardly with the instruction to cut in squares. If you bake your own, chill it thoroughly before slicing or it will crumble.
- Slicing thinThe recipe gives no measurement; an eighth of an inch is about as thin as this loaf will go. Brown bread is moist and tender, so use a long serrated knife and a day-old loaf, and slice with a sawing motion rather than pressing down.
- The almondsThe recipe says only 'finely chopped almonds'; plain shelled nuts, unroasted and unsalted, are what it assumes. Modern roasted salted almonds will overwhelm the molasses; use plain blanched almonds, and toast them lightly yourself if you want more flavour.
- Chop, don't grindChop by hand to something like coarse sand. A food processor turns almonds to paste and oil in seconds, and the paste will not stay put between two buttered slices.
- Butter to the edgesThe butter is the adhesive as well as the seasoning. The recipe butters only the bottom slice; have the butter properly soft, spread right to the crust, and press the sandwich gently before cutting so the nuts set into it.
- Cutting in squaresTrim the crusts if you like, then cut into four small squares per sandwich as directed. Cutting after assembly and pressing gives clean edges; cutting the bread to shape first invites tearing.
- Yield and holdingTwo slices give four small squares. Assemble no more than an hour or two ahead, cover with a barely damp cloth, and refrigerate; brown bread dries at the cut edges quickly.
The up-to-date sandwich books of the 1900s and 1910s multiplied variations on a theme with a thoroughness that explains the "No. 3" in the title: the numbering tells us that other almond sandwiches preceded it, even if it does not tell us what was in them. Boston brown bread was the obvious partner for a nut filling in an American book of this date — a steamed molasses-sweetened loaf, dark and slightly sweet, associated with New England Saturday-night suppers of beans and long steamed in a pudding mould or, later, a can set in a kettle of water. Its sweetness is why so many of these tea sandwiches pair it with nuts, dates or cream cheese rather than meat. The whole genre belongs to the era of the afternoon tea and the ladies' luncheon, when a sandwich was expected to be small, crustless and eaten in two bites.