August 30, 2006
That's A Sandwich A Day For the Next Year and a Half
"Why so little blogging, Mr. Banjo?" you may ask. Or you would, if you were reading this, if you hadn't given up long ago and moved on to greener blog pastures, places with things like sidebar graphics and colored fonts and daily postings.
"Is it because you are working a forty-hour-a-week job while also rehearsing for a play that opens next week, plus performing three times this weekend; twice at that little arts festival ( here and here) and once at the late-night version of the the same damn cabaret? "
In answer to the question you weren't asking, yes all those things are true but that isn't really what's been consuming my every waking moment, as I perform most of those activities while comfortably ensconced in the deepest stages of delta-wave sleep. No, the thing that's taken over my conscious hours is the recipe book you see depicted above. Yeah, you read that right. 500 of them! All of them tasty!
Published in 1941 by the Culinary Arts Institute shortly before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor precipitated the US entrance into WWII, 500 Tasty Sandwiches is a charming reminder of a peacetime America as yet untroubled by the hardships of asparagus and mayonnaise rationing (the 1942 publication by the C.A.I., entitled "Seven Tasty Sandwiches," was part of the DOD-sponsored "Sandwiches For Victory" campaign. It featured some innovative preparations for potatoes and equine by-products, and had the advantage of using much less paper than the pre-war version.)
Here's a sampling from 500 Tasty Sandwiches:
Tongue Sandwiches
1 ½ cups ground cooked tongue
½ cup minced sweet pickles
1/3 cup mayonnaise
8 slices white bread
½ cup softened butter
8 slices whole-wheat bread
Watercress
Mix tongue, pickles and mayonnaise together. Spread on white bread. Butter whole-wheat bread, put slices together and garnish with watercress sprays. Makes 8. Use ham or corned beef instead of tongue.
Speaking of tongues, I had to tuck mine back into my pie-hole after reading that mouth-watering recipe! I'm drooling all over my keyboard here! There's so many of them, it's making me dizzy. There's the Ham and Prune Sandwich (p. 32), the French Fried Liver Sandwich (P.38), the Pimiento Sardine Sandwich (P. 39), the Creamed Egg and Asparagus Sandwich (P.39), the Shrimp and Leiderkranz Sandwich (P.40), the Waffle Sandwich (P. 41), Peanut-butter Rarebit Sandwiches (P.44) and the Open-faced Ham Surprise (p.45), to name a few.
I may be hard to reach for a while. If I don't return your call, I hope you understand; I'm busy climbing a mountain. It's a mountain of pleasure, and that mountain is made of sandwiches!
....B'whoah! It's...,,,. Ham and prune, you say. Hello there. Heavens to Betsy. Aren't you having the fine time, then.
What's really good, and shut up everybody, is peanut butter and plain yogurt and salsa on toasted wheat bread. Extend that run to 501! Run that up your piehole and see who salutes it!
Posted by: Tina at August 31, 2006 02:18 PM...shrimp...and leiderkranz, which I haven't seen mention of since I lived in Deutschland. Wow.
Posted by: beige at August 31, 2006 08:51 PMI wish you had published the recipe for Peanut Butter Rarebit. Although, perhaps my imagined version is better than the real thing.
Posted by: Green Man at September 1, 2006 12:53 AMGreen man: Happy to oblige. Voila:
2 eggs
1 ½ cups milk
6 tablespoons peanut butter
1 teaspoon salt
4 slices toast
Beat eggs slightly, add milk, peanut-butter and salt. Cook in double boiler 12 minutes and pour over hot buttered toast. Serves 4.
Decadent!
Posted by: flamingbanjo at September 1, 2006 09:36 AMI dunno. Maybe it was just that lingering post-depression "waste nothing" attitude, but people back then sure ate some strange stuff.
And I wonder, was the CAI the forerunner of the Culinary Institute of America (the OTHER CIA), or was it perhaps a long-forgotten competitor?
Posted by: COMTE at September 1, 2006 10:05 AMoh. my. god. so, simple! so, tasty-sounding! just needs a touch of goat cheese, and, voila!
(it interests me that the pre-war US sandwich recipes closely resemble the sandwich esthetic i observed in northern ireland. does this mean that, despite being allies, the war caused some sort of Great Sandwich Rift between USselves and the Queen Mother Country?)
Posted by: raej at September 1, 2006 07:00 PMWow. That actually sounds like it would work. Perhaps it would be even more like a Rarebit with a dash of Worcestershire Sauce... Thank you, indeed.
Posted by: Green Man at September 1, 2006 11:00 PM