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Imperial Cheese Sandwich
One-half jar of Imperial cheese, one-half bottle (small size) of stuffed olives sliced fine, four tablespoonfuls of cream. Mix well and spread on thin slices of lightly buttered white bread with a crisp lettuce leaf between the slices.
A potted-cheese spread from an era when jarred cheese was a pantry staple. The only real difficulty is that the original measures by container rather than by weight.
- What Imperial cheese wasMacLaren's Imperial Cheese, a sharp cold-packed cheddar sold in a small crock or jar, generally traced to Canada in the 1890s and still sold there. A cold-pack sharp cheddar spread is the closest match; failing that, grate extra-sharp cheddar and work it smooth with a little softened cream cheese.
- "One-half jar" in weightJars of potted cheese of this kind were small and not standard between brands, so half a jar is genuinely ambiguous. Start with about 4 oz (½ cup) of cheese spread and judge by consistency rather than trying to pin down the original.
- The olivesA small bottle of stuffed olives is about 5 oz drained, so half is roughly ⅓ cup once sliced. Chop them finer than you think necessary; coarse pieces roll out of the sandwich when it is cut.
- CreamFour tablespoonfuls of heavy cream loosens the cheese to a spreadable paste. Add it a spoonful at a time and stop when the mixture holds its shape on a knife, since cheddar spreads vary in stiffness and olives add moisture of their own.
- Drain the olives wellBrine is the hinge here. Sliced olives left wet will thin the spread and soak through thin bread within the hour.
- Assembly and timingThe lettuce leaf goes in only at the last minute. Made ahead, the filling can be refrigerated for a day, but assembled sandwiches turn limp quickly and the lettuce weeps.
- YieldAbout a cup of spread by these measures, enough for five or six full sandwiches, or a couple of dozen crustless tea-sized fingers. The recipe itself specifies only thin slices of lightly buttered white bread.
This comes from the wave of sandwich books published around 1900, when the sandwich shifted from a workman's lunch to the backbone of luncheons, card parties and afternoon teas — occasions that demanded a great many small, uniform, pale-coloured fillings. Recipes of the type lean heavily on branded jarred goods, and Imperial cheese was among the most recognisable: a sharp cheddar potted in a glass jar, generally credited to the MacLaren firm in Ontario in the 1890s, sold widely on both sides of the border and still on Canadian shelves. That the author measures by half a jar and half a bottle rather than by ounces tells you how standardised the grocer's shelf had become; a reader would have known exactly which jar was meant. The stuffed olive plays the same role it does in a dozen other fillings of the period — a cheap, briny, shelf-stable flash of colour and salt in an era before most households had reliable refrigeration for anything more perishable.