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Salmon and Ham Sandwich
One-half can of salmon, two slices of cold boiled ham, two sprigs of watercress. Chop these together until fine, add a dash of lemon juice. Place between thinly cut slices of buttered bread.
A three-ingredient spread from an era when canned salmon was a pantry staple and cold ham was whatever remained from Sunday. It works, but it needs a firmer hand with seasoning and moisture than the original suggests.
- Half a can of salmonThe standard salmon can of the period was the tall one-pound size, so half is roughly 8 oz. One and a half modern 6 oz cans, drained, comes to about the same amount.
- Drain it hardCanned salmon carries a great deal of liquid, and the book says nothing about removing it. Press the fish in a sieve or squeeze it in a clean towel, or the filling will soak the bread within minutes.
- Bones and skinOlder canned salmon included both. The soft vertebrae can simply be mashed in rather than picked out — they are edible and calcium-rich — but flake through it once for any hard fragments.
- Chopped, not processed"Chop these together until fine" means a knife on a board or a wooden chopping bowl. A food processor will turn salmon into paste in about four seconds; pulse two or three times at most if you use one.
- WatercressTwo sprigs is a whisper. Use a small handful of leaves, stems removed, and chop them in at the end so they stay green and peppery rather than bruising to nothing.
- SeasoningNo salt or pepper is listed; the salt in the ham and the canned fish may have been thought enough. Taste before spreading — modern canned salmon and mild deli ham together can come out flat. Black pepper and a little more lemon usually fix it.
- Butter both slicesNot an economy of habit but a seal: softened butter on the cut faces keeps the fish moisture out of the crumb, which matters if the sandwiches sit before serving.
- YieldEnough for roughly six to eight sandwiches on thin-cut bread, or the same quantity cut into fingers for a tea plate.
Eva Greene Fuller's sandwich book belongs to a brief publishing boom in the first decade of the twentieth century, when the sandwich moved from workman's dinner pail to the centre of the ladies' luncheon and the afternoon reception. Canned salmon made that possible: the Pacific canneries, operating from the 1860s onward, pushed a once-regional fish into groceries across the country cheaply, and by 1900 it was among the more reliable proteins an American cook could keep on a shelf. The pairing with cold boiled ham reads as leftovers logic, while the watercress and the dash of lemon are the era's familiar corrective for anything rich or tinned.