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Banana Sandwich (Place peeled bananas sliced)
Place peeled bananas, sliced across, between thin slices of buttered brown bread from which the crusts have been trimmed. Place in the oven and leave until bread is toasted and you will have delicious and nourishing hot sandwiches. Very good for invalids.
A three-ingredient sandwich that behaves more like a baked pudding than a toasted one. The only real decisions are the bread and the oven setting.
- Brown breadHere this most likely means whole-wheat or graham bread, not the steamed Boston brown bread sold in cans. A dense whole-wheat sandwich loaf, sliced thin, is the right substitute.
- Oven temperatureNo temperature is given. Around 400F on a baking sheet browns the outside in 8 to 10 minutes without turning the banana to liquid.
- Butter both facesButter the outer surfaces as well as the inner ones. Dry bread in a hot oven goes brittle rather than toasted, and the fat is what gives the crust color and keeps the crumb from drying out.
- Slice thicknessCut the banana in coins no thicker than a quarter inch. Thicker pieces steam, wet the crumb, and slide out when the sandwich is cut.
- RipenessUse bananas that are fully yellow but still firm. Heavily speckled fruit collapses into a wet purée in the oven, which is fine for flavor and poor for structure.
- Press while bakingA second baking sheet laid on top, or a weighted pan, keeps the halves together and gives even contact with the heat. Without it the top slice tends to lift and curl.
- YieldRoughly one banana per sandwich, two sandwiches a serving as a light supper or tea dish. Best eaten within a few minutes; they turn leathery as they cool.
- On the invalid claimThe "very good for invalids" note reflects period sickroom cookery, not any nutritional judgment worth acting on. Treat it as a sweet snack.
Sandwich books proliferated between about 1900 and 1920, when cheap refined sugar and a steady import trade in fruit made the sandwich into something a hostess could serve at afternoon tea rather than only pack in a lunch pail. Bananas were the newest of those cheap imports: refrigerated steamers had turned them from an occasional luxury into a year-round grocery item, and cookbooks of the period put them into everything from salads to fritters, partly to show off the novelty. The invalid note is equally of its time, since sickroom cookery was a standard chapter in domestic manuals and soft, sweet, bland dishes made with milk, bread or fruit were the accepted diet for the convalescent. Baking a filled sandwich instead of toasting the bread first gave warmth and a crisp surface with no more equipment than the oven already lit for dinner.