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Salmon Sandwich No. 3
One can of salmon, one small head of lettuce chopped fine. One teaspoonful of melted butter, a dash of salt, and juice of half a lemon. Mix and place between thin slices of buttered white bread. Garnish with an olive.
A four-ingredient filling that depends entirely on drainage — canned salmon carries a great deal of liquid, and the lemon and melted butter add more. Squeeze the fish dry before mixing or the bread will be soaked through in ten minutes.
- The size of the canThe standard American salmon can of the period was the tall one-pound can, roughly twice the 7.5 oz cans common now. Use about a pound of canned salmon, or two 7.5 oz cans drained, to get the yield the original assumes.
- Bones and skinTraditionally packed salmon includes vertebrae and skin. The soft bones mash into the mixture and are edible, but pick out the skin and the darker lateral flesh if you want a cleaner colour and flavour.
- Butter as the only binderA teaspoonful of melted butter binds almost nothing; it stiffens the moment it hits cold fish. Modern practice would use a tablespoon or two of mayonnaise or softened butter worked in, but note that the recipe as written is deliberately lean.
- Chopped lettuceLettuce chopped fine and mixed with salt and lemon will weep within a quarter of an hour. Mix the salmon, butter, salt and lemon ahead if you like, but fold in the lettuce only as you build the sandwiches.
- Thin slices"Thin" here means as thin as the loaf will take without tearing, cut from a close-grained sandwich loaf and buttered right to the edges before filling. The butter is a moisture barrier as much as a flavouring.
- The oliveThe recipe asks only for an olive as garnish: set it beside the sandwich on the plate, or pin it through the top slice. The single-olive finish points to a tea-table presentation rather than a substantial sandwich.
- YieldAbout 2 cups of filling, enough for 8 to 10 rounds of sandwiches, or roughly 20 small tea-sized pieces.
Canned salmon is what makes this sandwich possible, and by the turn of the century it was a long-established pantry staple. Commercial canneries on the Columbia River and in Alaska had grown from the 1860s through the last decades of the nineteenth century until tinned salmon was one of the cheapest sources of good protein in an American pantry — sold everywhere, keeping well, and requiring no cooking. Sandwich books of the era lean on it heavily, and the presence of a "No. 3" here tells you as much: the compiler had enough salmon variations to number them. The sandwich itself belongs to the ladies' luncheon and afternoon-tea tradition, where thin crustless bread, a mild bound filling and a single olive for garnish were the expected form rather than anything meant to satisfy hunger.