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Ham Sandwich No. 3
Slice cold boiled ham thin; spread with French mustard, place between thin slices of rye bread. Garnish with a pickle.
A three-line formula that assumes you already have a boiled ham in the larder. The only real decisions are the mustard and the thickness of the slicing.
- "French mustard"In this period this meant a smooth, vinegar-based prepared mustard of the Dijon type, not the bright yellow American kind. Dijon is the closest substitute; it is generally sharper and less sweet than many jars sold as "French mustard" today.
- Cold boiled hamA whole ham simmered in water and left to cool, then sliced off the bone as needed. Sliced deli ham works, but it is wetter and saltier than the original; a piece of unsliced cooked ham carved at home is closer, and holds up better against rye.
- Slice thin, stack severalOne thick slab of ham slides out when bitten. Two or three thin slices layered give the same weight with more grip and a better texture. Shave the ham no thicker than a coin.
- The breadRye here is most likely a light American deli rye, often with caraway, rather than a dense German pumpernickel. Cut it thin; the recipe's thin slices suit a tea-table sandwich.
- Butter as well as mustardThe recipe omits it, but a thin layer of softened butter on the bread before the mustard keeps the rye from going damp if the sandwiches are made ahead.
- The pickleA garnish rather than a filling — a whole small cucumber pickle or a gherkin laid alongside on the plate. Slicing it into the sandwich changes the balance and wets the bread.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantity. As a rough guide, four sandwiches will take something like 8 oz of sliced ham. Cut on the diagonal or into fingers if serving with tea.
Sandwich collections were a small publishing genre in the early twentieth century, alongside the spread of the afternoon tea, the ladies' luncheon and the packed lunch. Their appeal was combinatorial: a single base -- cold ham, say -- recast several ways by varying the bread, the spread and the garnish, which may be why the ham sandwiches here are numbered rather than named. The pairing of ham, sharp mustard and rye belongs to the delicatessen idiom of the period, associated with German and Central European immigrant food shops, where caraway rye and cured pork were both everyday stock. The instruction to garnish with a pickle rather than to include one suggests a sandwich meant to be plated rather than wrapped.