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Swiss Cheese Sandwich
Cut rye bread very thin. Spread lightly with butter. Between the pieces place thin slices of Swiss cheese. Spread with mustard. Garnish with a dill pickle sliced thin.
A cold sandwich with nothing to convert, so the work is all in the assembly. The order given matters more than it looks: butter goes on both slices as a moisture barrier, mustard goes on the cheese rather than the bread.
- The breadRye of this period was generally a firmer, closer-crumbed loaf than a modern soft sandwich pan loaf. Cut it as thin as the crumb will allow, since the point of this sandwich is a high ratio of filling to bread.
- "Spread lightly with butter"Lightly is specified. A thin film of butter will help keep the mustard from soaking into the crumb, and a heavy layer fights the cheese rather than carrying it. Have the butter properly softened so thin bread is not torn.
- Swiss cheeseAn imported Emmental or a domestic Swiss block, sliced thin enough to drape. Pre-sliced Swiss works perfectly well here; the recipe gives no quantity, so judge it by the thin bread.
- MustardThe recipe specifies nothing beyond "mustard"; a prepared mustard of some kind is meant. The order given puts it on the cheese rather than the buttered bread.
- The pickleThe recipe treats the pickle as a garnish, sliced thin. If you do put the slices inside, blot them first; dill brine will soften thin rye quickly.
- Yield and servingThe recipe gives no yield. If serving on a tea or luncheon plate, assemble shortly before serving so the thin bread stays crisp.
The combination of rye, Swiss and mustard is the plain vocabulary of German and Central European immigrant delicatessens, which by this date were established in New York, Chicago, Milwaukee and Cincinnati; what the book does is take that counter sandwich and make it presentable to a genteel table by cutting the bread very thin and garnishing the plate. Swiss cheese in American use meant Emmental-type cheese with the characteristic eyes, made both in imported form and, from the mid-nineteenth century onward, by Swiss immigrant cheesemakers in Ohio and Wisconsin, which is why a book like this could assume any reader could buy it.