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Italian Sandwich
Take an equal number of slices of white and graham bread, spread with butter and cream cheese; on these put finely chopped olives that have been mixed with a little mayonnaise dressing. Press slices together in pairs with a crisp lettuce leaf between each pair, and cut diagonally. Garnish with parsley. airs w
A tea-table sandwich that depends entirely on the contrast between two breads and a sharp olive filling. Nothing here is difficult; the details that matter are the bread and the moisture.
- Graham breadGraham flour is coarsely ground whole wheat, and graham bread of this period was a soft, slightly sweet whole-wheat loaf rather than anything dense or seedy. A standard sandwich-sliced whole wheat is the closest supermarket match; the point is the color contrast with the white slices.
- Cream cheeseIn American recipe books of this era this means a fresh, unripened soft cheese, sold loose or in small foil-wrapped bricks. Modern block cream cheese works, but let it come fully to room temperature so it spreads without tearing the crumb.
- Butter first, then cheeseThe butter layer is not redundant. It seals the bread against the mayonnaise and olive brine, which is what keeps these from going soggy if made an hour ahead.
- The olivesAssume brine-cured green olives, the standard American cocktail olive of the era. Chop them fine and blot them dry on a towel before mixing with mayonnaise, or the filling will slide out under pressure.
- Mayonnaise"A little" means just enough to bind, a teaspoon or two to a half cup of chopped olives. Add it gradually and stop as soon as the olives hold together.
- AssemblyPair one white slice with one graham slice so each finished sandwich shows two colors. Press firmly with the flat of the hand before cutting; the diagonal cut through a lettuce leaf needs a serrated knife and a sawing motion, not downward pressure.
- Yield and servingThe recipe gives no quantities; as a guide, eight slices of bread would make four sandwiches and eight triangles. Cut within an hour of serving and keep them covered with a barely damp towel; the lettuce is what fails first.
This comes from a period when the sandwich had been promoted from picnic food to a fixture of the ladies' tea table, and when American cookbooks devoted whole volumes to the form, sorted by filling. The "Italian" label attaches to the olives rather than to anything Italian about the method; in early twentieth-century American usage olives, and to a lesser extent anchovies and peppers, were shorthand for a Mediterranean flavor, and dozens of contemporary recipes carry national names on similarly thin grounds. The two-bread trick was itself a small fashion of the day: white against graham gave hostesses visual variety on a plate at no extra cost, and checkerboard and ribbon sandwiches of the period were built from the same pairing of loaves.