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Sandwich (Three thin slices of lightly)
Three thin slices of lightly buttered white bread; between the first and second place a layer of chopped, preserved ginger, mixed with a little thick cream; and between the second and third slices, place a layer of chopped English walnuts; then tie up each sandwich neatly with blue baby ribbon.
A three-decker tea sandwich built on two fillings rather than one. Nothing here is difficult; the whole thing stands or falls on how thin the bread is and how stiff the cream is.
- Slice thin, and use day-old breadA close-crumbed white sandwich loaf cut about 1/4 inch thick, or a thin-sliced commercial loaf, is what this wants. Slightly stale bread cuts cleanly and resists soaking; trim the crusts after assembly, not before, so the layers stay aligned.
- Preserved gingerThis means stem ginger in heavy syrup, sold in jars or by weight in Chinese groceries. Drain it well and blot before chopping, or the syrup will run into the bread. Crystallised ginger can stand in if you rinse off the sugar coating and chop it fine; ground ginger cannot.
- "Thick cream"The rich cream that rose to the top of the bottle; the nearest modern equivalents are heavy cream, or British double cream, which is richer still. Whip it to soft peaks before folding in the ginger, since unwhipped cream can soak into a thin slice of bread.
- English walnutsThe ordinary Persian walnut of any supermarket, named to distinguish it from the American black walnut, which is far more assertive and would bully the ginger. Toast them lightly and chop fine; loose nut pieces make the top layer slide.
- Making the walnut layer holdThe recipe gives the nuts nothing to stick to beyond the butter. Butter that layer a little more generously and press the sandwich firmly, or reserve a spoonful of the whipped cream to bind the walnuts.
- The ribbon"baby ribbon" is the very narrow satin or silk ribbon of the period, and sandwiches tied with it turn up in tea-table cookery of these years. If you do it, use new ribbon that has not been dyed for craft use, tie it just before serving, and expect diners to remove it. A strip of parchment or a paper band does the same job with less anxiety.
- Assembly and holdingBuild the sandwiches whole, wrap in a damp towel or plastic, and chill 30 minutes before cutting. They firm up, cut cleanly into fingers or triangles, and should be eaten the same day.
- YieldThe original gives none. Reckon one whole three-slice sandwich cut into three or four fingers per person at tea; a standard sliced loaf will make seven or eight, more if you cut the slices yourself very thin.
Eva Greene Fuller's Up-to-Date Sandwich Book (1909) belongs to a brief, dense publishing moment when the sandwich stopped being a tavern item and became a genre with hundreds of named variations, most of them aimed at the afternoon tea table, the card party and the ladies' luncheon. Preserved ginger in syrup was an import often said to have been packed at Canton in glazed ceramic jars, and its appearance here suggests a sandwich meant to look costly on a doily rather than to feed anyone. The three-slice construction with two different fillings appears to have been a familiar conceit of the period, and the instruction to finish with blue baby ribbon is the tell: these books treat garnish as part of the recipe, on equal footing with the bread and the butter, as though the point of the dish were to be admired before it was eaten.