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Cheese Sandwich No. 2
Cut thin small rounds of brown bread and lightly butter; sprinkle with grated cheese; put two slices together and cut in two.
A tea sandwich rather than a lunch one: two thin rounds of buttered brown bread with dry grated cheese between. The whole thing depends on the bread being cut thin enough that it stays flexible.
- What "brown bread" means hereIn a sandwich book of this kind this is most likely a whole-wheat or graham loaf, not the steamed molasses Boston brown bread. A dense sandwich loaf sliced thin is the right substitute; the sweetened steamed kind will crumble when cut into rounds.
- Cutting the roundsA small plain biscuit cutter, roughly 1 1/2 to 2 inches, through slices no thicker than about 1/4 inch, suits the description. Cutting the rounds before buttering, as written, at least keeps you from buttering bread you are about to trim away.
- Which cheeseA firm dry cheese that grates into fine shreds, such as an American or English cheddar, is what this method needs. Anything moist or soft will not hold as a dry sprinkle between two thin rounds.
- Butter is structuralThe butter is the only thing gluing the grated cheese in place, so it must be soft enough to spread without tearing the bread but not melted. Leave it at room temperature for half an hour first.
- Season itNo seasoning is specified. A little salt, white pepper or a scrape of mustard on the butter keeps the sandwich from tasting flat.
- "Cut in two"The finished round is halved into two half-moons. Press the pair together firmly before the knife goes in or the cheese will spill at the cut edge.
- Yield and holdingOne standard sandwich loaf slice gives two to three rounds, so roughly a dozen rounds from six slices: six sandwiches, or twelve halves. Assemble no more than an hour ahead and keep them under a damp towel; thin brown bread dries out quickly.
Sandwich books were a small publishing genre around the turn of the twentieth century, when afternoon tea and the ladies' luncheon created steady demand for something small, cold and portable that a cook could turn out by the dozen. Numbered entries of the sort represented by "Cheese Sandwich No. 2" are less recipes than a catalogue of permitted variations: change the bread, change the cheese, change the shape, and you have another line to print. Brown bread carried a mild reputation for wholesomeness in this period, encouraged by the graham and whole-meal enthusiasms of the previous century, which is why it turns up so often opposite cheese and nuts rather than opposite meat. The round cutter and the final halving are pure tea-table convention.