Ham Sandwich
Grind boiled ham fine; mix with a little chopped celery and mayonnaise. Place between slices of thinly cut buttered bread.
A three-line filling that depends entirely on proportion and on the texture of the ham. A few notes on quantities and on the bread, which the original assumes you already understand.
- ProportionsFor about 1 cup of ground ham, use 2 to 3 tablespoons finely chopped celery and 2 to 3 tablespoons mayonnaise. Add the mayonnaise a spoonful at a time: the mixture should hold together when pressed, not slump.
- "Grind fine"This means a meat grinder, which produces a fluffy, even mince rather than the paste a food processor gives. A processor pulsed in short bursts, or a sharp knife and patience, comes closer to the intended texture.
- The hamBoiled ham here most likely means ham boiled and cooled whole, at home or from a butcher, rather than the thin pressed slices sold under that name today. Modern deli ham works but is wetter and saltier, so use less mayonnaise and taste before adding salt.
- CeleryChop it very small and, if the sandwiches are to sit, blot it dry. Celery is mostly water and will weep into the bread within an hour or two.
- Thinly cut buttered breadThe butter is structural, not decorative: it seals the crumb against the mayonnaise. Use softened butter spread edge to edge on both slices, and firm white sandwich bread cut about 1/4 inch thick.
- YieldA cup of filling makes roughly four full sandwiches, or sixteen quarters if you trim the crusts and cut into fingers or triangles.
- SeasoningThe recipe gives none, on the assumption the ham carries it. A little dry mustard or a few grinds of pepper is period-appropriate and lifts the whole thing.
Sandwich books were a small publishing industry in the first two decades of the twentieth century, arriving with the fashion for afternoon tea, card parties and the packed lunch. A ground-meat filling bound with mayonnaise was the workhorse of the genre: it used up cooked meat, it spread evenly on thin bread, and it did not fall out when the sandwich was cut into fingers. Commercial bottled mayonnaise was only beginning to appear in American groceries in these years, which may be why recipes of this sort name the dressing without further comment but never explain it. The celery is doing much the same job as the chopped olives and pickles that were already common in sandwich fillings of the period, adding crunch and moisture to meat that grinding has made uniformly soft.