SANDWICHES.
A pale young man, with feeble whiskers and a stiff white neckcloth, came walking down the lane en sandwich—having a lady, that is, on each arm.
—Thackeray ("Vanity Fair").
The term "sandwich," now applied to many a fanciful shaped and encased dainty, was formerly used in speaking of "two slices of bread with meat between." In this sense, the word had its origin, about the end of the eighteenth century, from the fact that the fourth Earl of Sandwich was so infatuated with the pleasures and excitement of the gaming-table that he often could not leave it long enough to take his meals with his family; and, on such occasions, a butler was despatched to him bearing "slices of bread with meat between."
The fillings of savory sandwiches may be placed between pieces of bread, crackers, pastry, chou paste or aspic jelly. When preparing sweet sandwiches, these same materials may be used, as also lady-fingers (white or yellow), macaroons or sweet wafers.
Bread for Sandwiches.
As a rule, bread for sandwiches should be twenty-four hours old; but fresh bread, which is more pliable than stale, is better adapted to this use, when the sandwiches are to take the form of rolls or folds. When stale bread is used for rolls or folds, they must be ribbon-tied; or tiny Japanese toothpicks may be made to keep them in shape.
The bread may be yeast or peptic bread. It may be white or brown. It is not even essential that the two bits of bread be of the same kind; Quaker, rice, whole-wheat, rye or graham bread is interchangeable with white or brown bread. After selecting your loaf or loaves, slice in even, quarter-inch slices; then cut in squares, triangles or fingers, or stamp with a round or fanciful-shaped cutter. Cutters can be obtained in heart, club, diamond and spade shape, also in racquet shape.
Do not spread butter or filling upon the bread before it is cut from the loaf and into shape. When so treated, the butter or filling on the extreme edge of the bread is liable to soil the fingers or gloves that come in contact with it.