Western Sandwich
Chop five olives, a dozen capers, and one gherkin fine and mix with two tablespoonfuls of mayonnaise dressing. Spread the lower slices of buttered white bread with fresh cream cheese, season with salt and pepper, then put another slice on top of that and spread with the olive mixture. On top place a third slice, press together, cut round, and garnish with a sprig of parsley.
A three-decker cold sandwich with two distinct spreads. The only real work is getting the olive-caper mixture chopped fine enough that the layers stay put when the round is cut.
- No egg, despite the sectionThis sits under "Egg" in the original book but contains none, unless you count the mayonnaise. The chapter groupings in these sandwich books are loose.
- Fresh cream cheeseAt the time this meant an unripened soft curd cheese sold loose, closer to modern farmer's cheese or a thick fromage blanc than to a foil-wrapped brick. Block cream cheese works, but let it come fully to room temperature or it will tear the bread.
- OlivesAssume small brine-cured green olives, pitted, not the large stuffed cocktail sort. Five is a modest amount for two tablespoons of mayonnaise; taste before salting further, as olives and capers both bring plenty.
- GherkinMost likely a sour pickled cucumber rather than the sweet gherkin of a modern relish tray. A cornichon is the closest thing on the shelf.
- Drain the chopped mixtureCapers and olives carry enough brine to slacken the mayonnaise and soak the middle slice. Blot the chop on a towel before mixing.
- Bread and cuttingThin-sliced white sandwich bread, three slices per sandwich. The recipe calls for buttered white bread and mentions butter only in connection with the lower slices. Press firmly before cutting the round, or the layers slide apart under the blade.
- YieldThe recipe speaks of "the lower slices" in the plural, so the quantities may be meant for more than one sandwich; either way the finished round is a tea or reception portion rather than lunch. Scale up for a crowd.
Sandwich books were a small publishing genre in the first decades of the twentieth century, aimed at hostesses serving afternoon tea, card parties and "luncheons" where the food was meant to be handled without a fork. The three-decker cut into a round, garnished with parsley and served as one of a dozen kinds on a platter, is characteristic of that moment: fussy, small, and built for appearance as much as appetite. The name "Western" here seems to have little to do with the diner Western sandwich of eggs, ham and onion — the absence of egg points that way, though it hardly settles the matter; in these collections the same title can mean entirely different things from one book to the next. What the filling does show is the era's fondness for the olive — a fashionable imported delicacy in American cities around 1900 — paired with the newly commercial cream cheese that Northeastern dairies were then selling in quantity.