Dainty Sandwiches

As Lovegren in Fashionable Food: Seven Decades of Food Fads points out "hostesses exercised all their creativity in concocting [these] little sandwiches." Olive and cream cheese, ham and cheese, orange marmalade and pecan, cream cheese and cherries, egg salad, cucumber and mint..."all made elegant fillings to spread on buttered bread. Needless to say, whether the breads were white, whole wheat or nutty, they all had their crusts removed before the sandwiches were sliced into dainty fingers, diamonds or squares."

Add the milk to the cream cheese to help soften and thin it out. Butter one side of the bread for the sandwiches without cream cheese (egg salad and ham and cucumber). Use cream cheese for the base of the following sandwiches: chopped olives, cucumber, chopped marashino cherries (mix with the cream cheese...it turns a lovely pink!). Cover sandwiches with a damp paper town and cover with saran wrap. Just before serving, cut the sandwiches into triangles, diamond, or fingers with a knife and use a cookie cutter for other shapes like circles and hearts. Sandwiches can be open faced, or multilayered with 2 to 4 slices of bread per sandwich.

Chicken Salad

Chicken salad was almost always served at weddings in the first half of the century and Judy's was no exception. It was considered extremely elegant fare.

Below is a chicken salad recipe from a period cookbook, The Settlement Cookbook: The Way to a Man's Heart published in 1944 (its 26th edition). An appropriate recipe for Judy's wedding which occurred on June 24, 1946.

1 pint diced, cooked chicken
1 cup diced celery
2 hard cooked eggs
Mayonnaise
Lettuce
Olives
6 Radishes
French Dressing*
1/2 cup whipped cream
Boil chicken. Mix with celery. Marinate with French Dressing. Chill for several hours. Drain. Before serving mix well with mayonnaise to which 1/2 cup whipped cream has been added. Serve on crisp lettuce leaves. Decorate with olives, slices of hard cooked egg and radish roses. For added elegance the chicken salad may be stuffed into emptied tomato shells or green peppers (pictured).

* French Dressing consists of combining 6 tablespoons of vegetable oil with 1/2 teaspoon each of salt, white pepper and parika, and 1^1/2 tablespoon each of vinegar and lemon juice. Shake well before using.

Fruit Punch

1 cup water
2 cups sugar
2 cups strawberry syrup
5 lemons, juiced and seeded
5 oranges, juiced and seeded
1 8 ounce can pineapple juice
1 cup marashino cherries and juice
1 quart carbonated water
12 violets and tea roses
2 ice cube trays
(Serves 24)

Fill the ice cube trays with one flower each, cover with water and freeze. Boil the sugar with the 1 cup of water for about 10 minutes, to make a syrup. Add all remaining ingredients. Add additional water to male two gallons of punch. Set punch bowl over a bed of ice. Add flower ice cubes right before serving.

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