A couple of days ago I shared a menu from almost a hundred years ago, it was the April suggestion from a year of ‘little dinners’.
The menu – which includes a suggested table decoration of bluebells and daffodils, is:
corn soup
leg of English lamb and mint sauce
new potatoes
spring cabbage
pineapple pie
anchovy fingers
The pineapple pie sounds nice – a little like a lemon meringue pie but with pineapple instead of lemon… I think I shall bear this in mind next time we have guests – checking they like pineapple first of course!
The anchovy toast is something I guess we might serve to go with drinks before the meal, rather than the end; we would have a cheese board and biscuits to finish! So anchovy fingers… almost a paté served on toast… but the recipe books suggests you might like to use anchovy paste instead… I’m no sure that would be very popular, certainly not in my family!
So, just in case you fancy it, here is how you make 90-year-old anchovy fingers!
Anchovy fingers
- 10 anchovies – tinned or bottled, drained
- 12 bread fingers
- 1½ oz butter
- 3 hard-boiled eggs
- pepper
- parsley, chopped fine
- butter for the toast
- mash the anchovies with the butter
- cut the eggs in half and remove the yolks adding them to the butter and anchovy mixture
- rub through a sieve and season with pepper
- toast and butter the fingers, or fry them in the butter
- put the anchovy mix onto the fingers and decorate with chopped egg white and parsley
Lois Elsden 