Pecan Sandwich
One cup of chopped pecans, one cup of chopped dates, mixed with a tablespoonful of whipped cream to moisten. Place between thin slices of white or whole wheat bread.
A two-ingredient filling that depends almost entirely on how finely you cut the dates and how little cream you add. It comes together in ten minutes and holds badly, so make it close to serving.
- Chop, then chop againDates that are merely halved will tear the bread as you spread. Cut them small with an oiled knife or pulse briefly in a processor with the pecans until the mixture is coarse crumbs, not paste.
- Cream as binder, not fillingA tablespoon of whipped cream is meant only to make the dry mixture cohere. More than that and the filling weeps into the bread within the hour. If it still will not hold, add cream half a teaspoon at a time.
- Toast the pecansThe recipe does not say to, but eight minutes at 350F transforms the flavour and is worth the trouble in a sandwich with no other seasoning.
- A pinch of saltDates and pecans together are relentlessly sweet. A few grains of salt in the mixture sharpens both and costs nothing.
- Thin slicesSandwich books of this era generally assumed a close-grained white loaf sliced very thin. Modern sandwich bread is thicker and softer; a firm white or a dense whole wheat, sliced thin, is nearer the intent.
- YieldRoughly two cups of filling, enough for a dozen or so full sandwiches, or considerably more if cut into small crustless fingers.
- KeepingThe cream makes this perishable. Hold the sandwiches under a damp cloth in the refrigerator and eat within a few hours; the filling itself can be made a day ahead if you leave the cream out until assembly.
Nut sandwiches occupy their own chapter in the American sandwich books of the early 1900s, when the sandwich had moved off the workman's lunch pail and onto the tea table, the card party and the ladies' luncheon. Pecans were the native American nut of choice for such things, cheap and plentiful in the South and increasingly shipped north, while dates arrived by the box from North Africa and the Persian Gulf and were a fixture of the turn-of-the-century pantry. Combinations like this one, sweet and bound with a little cream or mayonnaise, sat comfortably alongside savoury fillings on the same plate; the sharp modern line between a sandwich and a dessert had not yet been drawn.