We had a few tasks to complete today, which we did and then, although we were only a few miles from home, we decided to treat ourselves to a coffee and a sandwich in a place near to where we had parked the car. They were quite ordinary but very tasty sandwiches but it made me think about other fillings which are maybe more interesting – my current favourite is chilli hummus and mashed banana. It’s a little soggy, so eat with caution, but the contrasting textures are nice, and th contrasting flavours, plus the hot spike of spice.
This is something I wrote here some time ago which offers some unusual suggestions!
Many ordinary people doing what they saw as their duty and for women, following their husbands, lived in different parts of the world, parts of what was then ‘the Empire’. My father-in-law was in West Africa during the war; he was a merchant seaman in command of a river class frigate. Somewhere he acquired a book ‘Cooking in the Congo’ and I have it now and I’m looking at the suggested sandwich fillings from seventy years ago. Some of the fillings hark back to dear old Blighty, to ‘home’ in temperate Britain:
- hard-boiled egg, grated cheese and mayonnaise
- crisp bacon, Gruyère and cream cheese
- tomato or cucumber
- sardines (no-one these days would have sardine sandwiches, but this was the 1940’s!)
Some of the fillings are more interesting, and I was surprised although maybe shouldn’t have been if I’d thought about it, to see avocado included – something never heard of then in wartime Britain:
- avocado and egg or avocado and mayonnaise, or made into a triple-decker with tomatoes
- ground peanuts and creamed avocado
- peanut butter, crispy bacon and mayonnaise (my son would love them!)
- cream cheese and chopped ginger (this sounds a winner to me!)
- salad with banana and peanut mayonnaise
It’s advised that bread should be one day old, sliced thin with a sharp knife; fillings should be chopped, minced and ‘moist enough not to crumble… yet dry enough not to dribble’ – such wise advice!!
Lois Elsden 