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Sandwich (Chop equal quantities)
Chop equal quantities of English walnuts and raisins fine, mix with a little cream, and place between thin slices of lightly buttered white bread. Garnish top with a raisin.
A two-ingredient filling that depends almost entirely on how finely you chop and how little cream you add. The book gives no quantities, so treat the ratio as the whole instruction.
- English walnutsSimply the common walnut (Juglans regia). In American usage the qualifier generally served to separate it from the native black walnut, which is stronger and more tannic in flavour. Any supermarket walnut half is what is meant here.
- Equal quantities, by what measureThe original does not say whether by weight or volume. Volume is the safer reading for a filling of this kind; as a starting point, something like 3/4 cup each of walnuts and raisins will fill a few sandwiches, but the book gives no guide.
- Chop, do not processA food processor turns walnuts to paste and raisins to a gummy lump in seconds. Chop both by hand to a coarse crumb so the filling still has texture between thin bread.
- Cream, sparinglyA tablespoon or two of heavy cream is enough to make the mixture cohere. Any more and it will soak into the bread; buttering the slices, as the recipe directs, helps limit that.
- Soften the raisins if they are dryIf yours are hard, a brief soak in hot water and a thorough pat dry keeps them from tearing the crumb.
- BreadThin-sliced white sandwich bread, crusts trimmed if serving for tea. Chill the loaf briefly before slicing thin if you are cutting from a whole loaf.
- Yield and timingThe book gives no yield. Assemble no more than an hour or so ahead and keep covered with a damp cloth; a cream binder will not hold overnight.
Nut-and-fruit sandwiches belong to the brief American vogue, roughly 1890 to 1920, for the sandwich as a dainty rather than a meal — served at afternoon teas, card parties and church luncheons, cut small and crustless. Whole books like this one were published to catalogue the permutations, and nuts — walnuts and pecans above all — recur throughout them. The single raisin pressed on top is characteristic of the genre: the sandwich was expected to be looked at as much as eaten.