Month: December 2024

What Are Canapes and Peek-a-Boo Sandwiches?

 

Salad Peek-a-Boo Sandwiches on plateCanapes and peek-a-boo sandwiches were popular a hundred years ago. Recipes for them, some of which seem very unusual today, are often found in old cookbooks.

A few weeks ago I posted a recipe for Mrs. Sigmund Weis’ Star Canapes which contained capers, hard-boiled egg yolk and white, chopped pickles and pimento, and anchovies on star shaped pieces of bread.  Shortly after I did that post I was at a party and friends had lots of comments and questions. “That recipe you posted was strange.”  “How do you pronounce “canape”? Did I say it right?” “Why was she called Mrs. Sigmund Weis? Didn’t she have a first name?”

Plate of Star Canapes

This blog is always slightly quirky, but I came to the conclusion that the Star Canape post was quirkier than usual. Then I recently started working on my December posts and flipped through the December, 1924 issue of Ladies Home Journal. Amazingly, there was an entire article on canapes and peek-a-boo sandwiches. Apparently canapes and peek-a-boo sandwiches were the trendy food to serve at holiday parties a hundred years ago.

In case you wondered, canapes are a small piece of bread (sometimes toasted) or a cracker with a topping. They are a  type of hors d’oeuvre. According to the Oxford Learner’s Dictionary, canape is pronounced “kænəˌpeɪ”, and if you struggle with that you can hear someone actually say the word on the Oxford site.

According to the 1924 Ladies Home Journal article, peek-a-boo sandwiches are a little larger than canapes and the bread is not toasted. Two slices of bread (which often is in a round shape) are used to make each sandwich. The bread slices are buttered. A filling is put on the bottom slice. Then a peephole is cut out of the top slice using a small cookie cutter. A garnish, which the old magazine article calls a “tempting morsal,” is put in the hole.

Here are some recipes for canapes and peek-a-boo sandwiches in the hundred-year-old issue of Ladies Home Journal:

Canapes

Canape recipes
Source: Ladies Home Journal (December, 1924)

Peek-a-Boo Sandwiches

Peek-a-boo sandwich recipes
Source: Ladies Home Journal (December, 1924)

(The photo at the top of the post is my interpretation of the Salad Peek-a-Boo recipe.)

Old-Fashioned Preserved Pumpkin

Preserved Pumpkin in jars

I’ve had a large pumpkin sitting on my front porch for close to two months. Now that the Fall holidays are past, it was time to compost it – but then I remembered seeing a recipe for Preserved Pumpkin in a hundred-year-old magazine. I dug out the recipe. Preserved Pumpkin actually was a pickled pumpkin recipe. In addition to strips of pumpkin, it called for sugar, lemon juice and peel, and ginger. The recipe looked intriguing – but like many pickle recipes it looked like a lot of work and required letting the pumpkin strips sit in the syrup for several days before cooking. I kept thinking – just toss the pumpkin and be done with it. But. . .

I couldn’t get the Preserved Pumpkin recipe out of my mind (my life must be boring), and ended up making a small batch. And, I’m glad that I did.  I peeled, seeded, and cut into strips about one quarter of the pumpkin and composted the rest.

The Preserved Pumpkin was wonderful with a lovely sweet, citrusy flavor. I’m not exactly sure how to describe the texture. The pumpkin strips were sort of crunchy – or perhaps they were slightly chewy. Maybe a better description is that the texture was at the intersection of crunchy and chewy, if there is such a thing. The Preserved Pumpkin almost seemed gourmet and I could picture it being served at a very nice restaurant as a palette cleanser. I anticipate that I will make this recipe again next year.

Here’s the original recipe:

Recipe for Preserved Pumpkin
Source: American Cookery (November, 1924)

When I made this recipe 1/2 inch seemed very thick for the slices, so I made them approximately 1/4 inch thick. I also ended up with about 2 1/2 pounds of pumpkin strips (rather than the 2 pounds called for when doubling the recipe). I decided to proceed with a little extra pumpkin and the recipe worked fine.

Preserved Pumpkin

Here’s the recipe updated for modern cooks:

Preserved Pumpkin

  • Servings: 2 pints
  • Difficulty: moderate
  • Print

approximately 2 1/2 pounds pumpkin, peeled and seeded then cut into strips 1/4-inch thick

2 pounds sugar

2 teaspoons ground ginger

lemon peel from 2 lemons, cut into thin strips

juice from 4 lemons

1  cup water

Put a layer of pumpkin slices in an enameled pan, crock, or large baking dish. Put a layer of sugar over the pumpkin, as well as some lemon peel strips and ground ginger. Repeat alternating layers. Pour the lemon juice over the layered pumpkin mixture. Cover and set in the refrigerator or other cool spot for two t0 three days. Then put the mixture in a large enamel or stainless steel pan. Add the water. Bring to a boil using medium heat; then reduce heat and simmer until the pumpkin slices are tender and translucent (about 20-3o minutes). Lift the pumpkin slices and lemon strips out and pack them into pint jars. Continue boiling the syrup for another 10-15 minutes, then pour the hot syrup over the packed pumpkin and lemon. Fill to 1/4 inch of top. Wipe jar rims and put lid on. Process in boiling water bath for 5 minutes.

http://www.ahundredyearsago.com