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School Girl Sandwiches
The filling for these is made of chopped olives and grated cheese, moisten with very little cream, white bread spread with good sweet butter.
A three-ingredient spread with no quantities given, which is typical of turn-of-the-century sandwich sections. The proportions are the whole job.
- Working proportionsRoughly two parts grated cheese to one part chopped olives by volume makes a filling that holds together and still tastes of both. A cup of cheese with half a cup of olives fills six to eight sandwiches.
- The cheese"Grated cheese" is unspecified here; in American cookbooks of the period it commonly meant a dry aged cheddar or a hard factory cheese, though Parmesan is also often intended. A firm cheddar grated on the small holes works; anything soft or fresh will turn the filling greasy.
- The olivesThe type is not specified; green olives in brine, stuffed or plain, chopped small, are the likeliest reading. Drain and blot them well — olive brine will thin the mixture past the point where cream can rescue it.
- "Very little cream"This is the hinge. Add cream a teaspoon at a time until the mixture just coheres when pressed with a fork. Too much and it soaks the bread within minutes, which is presumably why the recipe qualifies the quantity at all.
- Sweet butterUnsalted butter, and it is not optional decoration. A thin coat sealed against both crumb faces keeps the moisture in the filling from reaching the bread, which matters for sandwiches meant to sit in a lunch box or on a tea tray.
- The breadA close-grained white sandwich loaf, sliced thin. If serving them trimmed, cut the crusts and shape into fingers or triangles after assembling, not before.
- HoldingAssembled sandwiches keep two or three hours wrapped in a damp cloth and refrigerated. The filling itself will hold a day covered, though the olives continue to weep.
Sandwich chapters expanded enormously in American cookbooks around 1900, a period that also saw the ladies' luncheon, the church supper and — as the name here suggests — the packed school lunch. Names like "School Girl," "Bride's" and "Club" attached an occasion to what was otherwise a list of chopped things bound with cream or mayonnaise. The olive-and-cheese pairing belongs to a moment when imported Spanish olives had become cheap enough for everyday grocery shelves and were being worked into everything from canapés to salad dressings; olive-and-pimiento spreads run parallel to the distinct pimiento-and-cheese preparation familiar today. That the recipe specifies "good sweet butter" rather than any quantity of anything tells you what the author assumed her reader already knew.