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Lobster Sandwich No. 4
Chop the meat of a medium sized lobster and a stalk of celery fine, moisten with a little mayonnaise dressing, and place between thin slices of lightly buttered white bread. Garnish with a slice of lemon.
A lobster salad sandwich in three lines. The only real variables are how much meat a "medium sized" lobster gives and how lightly you dress it.
- What a medium lobster yieldsA "medium" lobster of the period was likely around 1 to 1 1/4 lb live weight, which picks out to roughly 4 oz of meat. That fills two generous sandwiches, or three if you are cutting them into tea-sized fingers.
- Cooked meat is assumedThe book takes for granted that the lobster arrives boiled; cooked lobster was commonly available from fish dealers. Start from cooked meat, whether you boil a live one yourself or buy picked claw and knuckle meat.
- Dress it barely"Moisten with a little" is the hinge. A tablespoon of mayonnaise to 4 oz of meat is plenty; more turns the filling into paste and it soaks the thin bread within minutes.
- Chop, do not shredThe recipe says fine, so aim for small, even pieces rather than working the meat to a paste. Claw meat in particular loses its texture entirely if worked with a knife too long.
- Celery"A stalk" may mean a single rib or a whole head; a single rib is the sensible reading against one lobster. Use the pale inner ribs, cut very fine, and taste before adding all of it. The point is crunch and not flavour.
- BreadThin slices of a close-grained white loaf, buttered edge to edge. The butter is structural here, sealing the crumb against the dressing, so do not skip it even though the filling is already rich.
- Keep it coldDressed shellfish sitting at room temperature is the one genuine risk in this sandwich. Mix, fill and serve within an hour, and hold the filling refrigerated until you assemble.
- The lemonA lemon slice was a common garnish for fish dishes of the period, and it earns its place: a squeeze over the open filling before you close the sandwich sharpens the mayonnaise considerably.
Lobster sandwiches turn up repeatedly in American sandwich and luncheon books of the 1900s and 1910s; lobster was a coastal food sold cooked from fish markets along the Northeast seaboard and shipped inland in cans. Sandwich books of this era often ran several numbered variations on a single ingredient, differing in the binder or the seasoning, and this is the plainest of the lobster set: no cayenne, no hard-boiled egg, no lettuce, just meat, celery and dressing. The formula is essentially the lobster salad of the same period pressed between bread.