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Specialty Sandwich
On thin slices of toasted bread that have been lightly buttered, place a thick slice of tomato, over top of tomato spread salad dressing, then just a touch of caviare, cover with another slice of toast, and garnish with a slice of lemon.
A four-line assembly sandwich from an era when caviar was a garnish rather than a luxury. The whole thing hangs on keeping the tomato dry enough that the toast survives.
- Salt and drain the tomatoA thick slice of raw tomato on toast will flood the bread within minutes. Salt the slices, lay them on paper towel for ten minutes, and blot before assembling.
- What "salad dressing" meantIn an American book of this date this often meant a cooked or boiled dressing, thickened with egg and flour and sharpened with vinegar and mustard, rather than modern mayonnaise. Commercial sandwich spread or a mustard-spiked mayonnaise is the closest match; use it thinly, since the caviar brings its own salt.
- The caviare"Just a touch" is the operative instruction. Any salt-cured roe works here, but avoid the heavily pasteurised lumpfish sorts if you can, as they bleed black dye into the dressing. Add it last, and do not stir it into anything.
- Butter is structuralThe light buttering is not for flavour so much as to waterproof the toast against the tomato and the dressing. Butter to the edges while the toast is still warm, then let it set before building.
- Toast thin, toast dryThin slices, well dried out rather than merely browned, hold up under a wet filling. Toast the outer faces as well if the sandwich is to sit for any length of time.
- ServingOne sandwich per slice pair; as written this is a tea or luncheon portion, not a meal. Cut into halves or fingers, and set the lemon slice on the plate so it can be squeezed over the cut face rather than tucked inside.
- SeasoningThe recipe calls for no pepper, and none is needed given the roe, but a grind over the tomato before the dressing goes on does no harm.
The Up-to-Date Sandwich Book belongs to a brief American vogue, roughly 1900 to 1920, for the sandwich as a hostess's set piece rather than a workman's lunch, and its "specialty" chapters read as inventories of what a well-stocked pantry could be persuaded to yield. Caviar turns up casually in such books because it was then a good deal less rarefied in the United States than it later became: American sturgeon from the Delaware and Hudson had supported a large domestic roe trade in the late nineteenth century, and cured roe was a saloon and buffet staple, generally said to have been set out free to encourage drinking. The pairing with tomato, boiled dressing and a lemon slice is pure period style, the same logic that produced the era's layered salads, where a small quantity of something expensive is deployed as a signal rather than as a substance.