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Raisin Sandwich
Cut large raisins in halves with a sharp knife; take out the seeds, dip in brandy or sherry; do not let them remain a moment in the liquor; cut white bread in rounds, spread with butter, and put a layer of raisins between the two rounds of bread. Garnish top with a raisin and serve with lemonade.
A sandwich from the era when afternoon tea demanded something small, sweet and pale. The recipe gives no quantities at all, so treat it as a method.
- Seeded vs. seedless raisinsThe halving and seeding step reflects the fact that large seeded raisins, such as muscatels, were still commonly sold with the seeds in. Modern Thompson seedless raisins need none of that; if you want the original's plump, jammy character, use large muscatel or jumbo flame raisins and simply halve them.
- "Do not let them remain a moment"This is the hinge. Raisins left to soak in brandy or sherry go slack and weep into the butter, which turns the bread grey and soggy. A quick roll in the liquor in a shallow dish, then straight onto the buttered bread.
- The butter is structuralSpread it soft and to the very edge of each round. It helps seal the crumb against moisture from the fruit.
- Cutting roundsA small plain cutter, around 2 inches, suits a tea sandwich. Cut the rounds from thin-sliced firm white bread, and cut all of them before you butter anything.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantities. Scale the butter and raisins to however many rounds you cut.
- Holding themAssemble no more than an hour ahead and keep under a damp cloth or covered with plastic. The cut edges of small rounds dry out faster than any other sandwich shape.
- Without alcoholWarm orange or apple juice dulls the effect but works on the same principle: a brief dip, not a soak. The point of the liquor is aroma at the surface, not saturation.
Eva Greene Fuller's Up-to-Date Sandwich Book (1909) belongs to a brief American publishing craze for sandwich manuals, driven by the rise of the ladies' luncheon, the bridge party and the afternoon tea table, where food had to be small, handleable and served without a knife. The sweet section of such books is essentially a catalogue of things that could be laid between two buttered rounds of white bread: jam, nuts, dates, candied ginger, and dried fruit like this. Seeded raisins were a genuine kitchen chore of the period, which is why the instruction to halve and seed each one comes first and without comment; commercially seeded raisins were becoming available but were far from universal, and mechanical raisin seeders were sold as a household gadget. The direction to "serve with lemonade" is a reminder that these sandwiches were part of a fixed social script rather than a meal, and that the pairing of the plate with the glass was considered part of the recipe.