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Seafoam Sandwich
Spread crisp seafoam crackers with butter, a sprinkling of grated Parmesan cheese, and very finely chopped celery or olives. Place two together and serve.
A two-minute cracker sandwich that lives or dies on assembly timing. Nothing here needs heat, so the only real work is getting the butter soft enough to spread without snapping the cracker.
- Seafoam crackersA thin, crisp cracker sold under that name in the period and no longer on shelves; the precise product is not now identifiable with confidence. Any thin water cracker, unsalted top saltine, or plain butter cracker of the same size works; avoid anything thick or heavily seasoned, which will overwhelm the filling.
- Butter temperature is the hingeCold butter will crack a thin cracker as you spread it. Bring it to full room temperature and beat it smooth first, or thin it with a teaspoon of cream, then apply with a light hand rather than pressure.
- ParmesanGrate it yourself from a wedge and grate it fine. Pre-grated shelf-stable cheese is drier and more powdery, and the anti-caking coating reads as dusty against plain butter with nothing to melt into.
- Celery or olivesChop finely, then dry on a towel. Excess moisture will migrate into the cracker and soften it.
- Season by which filling you choseOlives bring their own salt and so does Parmesan; with olives use unsalted butter and a lighter hand with cheese. With celery, salted butter and a pinch of pepper give it something to stand on.
- Assemble at the last momentThese do not hold their crispness long. Prepare the butter, cheese and filling ahead, keep them separate, and press the pairs together as the tray goes out.
- YieldThe original gives no quantity. Figure roughly 2 oz softened butter, 1/2 cup grated Parmesan and 1/3 cup chopped celery or olives for about 24 crackers, making 12 sandwiches.
Eva Greene Fuller's Up-to-Date Sandwich Book (Chicago, 1909) collects several hundred fillings for a moment when the sandwich is often said to have become a staple of ladies' luncheons, card parties and afternoon teas as much as of working men's dinner pails. Recipes like this one, built on a commercial cracker instead of bread, reflect how thoroughly the packaged-biscuit trade had reached American pantries by then: tins of thin, crisp crackers were bought rather than baked, and cookbook writers simply called for them. The cheese chapter leans on grated Parmesan much as it leans on crackers, ingredients that kept well in a household without reliable refrigeration and could be assembled into something presentable in minutes without lighting a stove.