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Bummers Custard Sandwich
Take a cake of Roquefort cheese and divide in thirds; moisten one third with brandy, another third with olive oil, and the other third with Worcestershire Mix all together and place between split water sauce. biscuits toasted. Good for a stag lunch.
A Roquefort spread in three parts, each moistened differently and then recombined. The text has been mangled somewhere between the kitchen and the typesetter, so read it in order before you start.
- The garbled line"between split water sauce. biscuits toasted" is a printing error. The intent is Worcestershire sauce, and the spread served between split water biscuits, toasted.
- A cake of RoquefortRoquefort was cut from large wheels and sold in wedges or blocks; no weight is given here, so "a cake" means only a small block, enough for a plateful of spread. Buy genuine Roquefort if you can, otherwise any firm, salty blue sheep's or cow's-milk cheese will behave much the same way.
- Mash, do not blendDivide the cheese into three portions and mash each with a fork against the bowl until it takes up its liquid, then bring the three together. A food processor turns blue cheese into a gluey paste and dulls the crumb that makes this worth eating.
- Quantities of liquidNone are given, and the recipe collapses if you overdo them. A teaspoon of brandy, a teaspoon of oil and about half a teaspoon of Worcestershire per third is enough to loosen the cheese to a spreadable state.
- Worcestershire and saltRoquefort is already sharply salted and Worcestershire adds more, along with anchovy. Taste before adding any further seasoning; this needs none.
- Water biscuitsPlain unsweetened crackers, closer to a British water biscuit than a saltine. "Split" most likely means separating the biscuit into two thin leaves, which works with a laminated biscuit and generally will not with a modern cracker. Failing that, toast two thin crackers and sandwich them.
- Assemble lateThe oil and brandy will soften a toasted biscuit fairly quickly. Make the spread ahead if you like, keep it covered and cool, and put the sandwiches together as they go to the table.
- YieldA small cake of cheese makes roughly a dozen little cracker sandwiches, a plate's worth for four or five people alongside drinks.
This belongs to a small class of American cheese sandwiches built for men drinking, and the book says so outright: "Good for a stag lunch." A stag lunch was a men-only meal, usually with spirits, and the food expected to hold up against them was salty, sharp and small. Roquefort had been an imported luxury in American cities since the late nineteenth century and turns up repeatedly in period sandwich and canape lists, generally softened with butter, cream or, as here, something stronger. The trick of dividing the cheese and moistening each part separately is the interesting bit, though the book does not explain why it is done: brandy, oil and Worcestershire each work into the cheese on its own, and the recombined thirds give a spread that carries all three flavours. Whether "Bummer" refers to a person, a club or the period slang for a loafer is not recorded in the book.