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Sandwich (Chop figs fine adding enough)
Chop figs fine, adding enough water to make a smooth paste, and cook slowly until of a consistency to spread. Flavor with a little orange juice or grated candied orange peel. Chop one-half cup of English walnuts fine, add to the fig paste filling. Place between thin slices of white or brown bread lightly buttered, cut in fanciful shapes.
A fig-and-walnut spread with no quantities given for the main ingredient, which is typical of the book. The one thing to control is the paste's consistency: cook it until it mounds on a spoon rather than slumps, or it will soak into the bread within the hour.
- Working quantitiesThe original names only the half cup of walnuts. About 8 oz (roughly 1 1/2 cups) of dried figs, stems removed, with 1/2 to 3/4 cup water, cooks down to enough filling for 8 to 10 sandwiches. Add the water gradually; too much means a long reduction.
- The figsDried Calimyrna or Turkish figs are closest to what a 1909 kitchen had. Soak them in hot water for 20 minutes before chopping, or simply pulse them in a food processor with the water and skip the knife work entirely.
- Cooking the pasteTen to fifteen minutes over low heat, stirring often. Fig paste catches and scorches easily once the water goes; pull it when a spoon drawn through the pan leaves a track that closes slowly.
- English walnutsThe period name for the common walnut, distinguishing it from the native black walnut, which is far stronger and would dominate the figs. Ordinary walnut halves are what is wanted. Toast them briefly if you like, and add them off the heat so they stay crisp.
- Candied orange peelGrate it while cold and firm, or mince it fine; a tablespoon is plenty against 8 oz of figs. If using juice instead, a tablespoon stirred in at the end keeps the fresh aroma, which boils away if added early.
- Bread and butterThe butter is not decoration. A thin film on each slice seals the crumb against the moist filling and is what allows these to be made an hour or two ahead.
- Fanciful shapesCut with a small round or diamond cutter after assembly, and press straight down rather than twisting so the filling does not squeeze out.
- KeepingThe paste itself holds a week refrigerated in a covered jar and firms up cold; let it come to room temperature before spreading or it will tear the bread.
Eva Greene Fuller's Up-to-Date Sandwich Book (1909) collects several hundred fillings from a moment when the sandwich was well established at American tea tables and ladies' luncheons, and this recipe reflects that setting rather than the lunch pail. Sweet fruit-and-nut fillings on thin buttered bread, cut into rounds and diamonds, were the sandwich in its most genteel form. Dried figs were a staple pantry import from Turkey and, increasingly by 1909, from California, where Smyrna-type figs had been established a decade or so earlier once growers worked out the pollinating wasp; candied orange peel was likewise a keeping ingredient, on hand year-round when fresh oranges were seasonal and costly. The instruction to cut in fanciful shapes suggests food meant to be looked at on a plate, not eaten out of hand.