As
many of you know, I love old words - especially old regional food words. I had
a sudden realization the other day that I have never shared my favourite old
regional food word with you. I don’t know how it happened, but it did. Today I
want to make up the deficit.
The
word is butty. As far as I can make out, in the late
nineteenth century the word rsimply referred to a piece of bread and butter. Before
too long – and certainly by the time I grew up in the North of England – the word
was usually qualified to indicate the chosen spread or filling, so you could have, for example, a treacle butty or a jam butty or a bacon butty.
In other words, a butty was a sandwich. Not one of your unfulfilling fancy-pants
sandwiches made with thinly sliced white bread cut into triangles, but a rustic,
filling snack, hastily made and thickly comforting.
Not cut, even, but the bread just folded over the filling.
Jam
and bacon butties are pretty good, but the quintessential butty is a chip butty. A chip is known elsewhere in
the non-butty-eating parts of the world as a French fry, but ‘French Fry Butty’ does not sound right, no
matter where you eat it. A cousin of the chip butty is the crisp butty, crisps
being ultra-thin packetted potato snacks known in the non-buttty-eating parts
of the world as chips. Confusing, isn’t
it?
Anyway,
if you haven’t had one, I urge you to try a genuine chip butty. You don’t need a recipe. Just put a big pile of hot
chips onto a thick slice of buttered bread, salt and vinegar them (malt
vinegar, if you please) fold it over and eat it while it is hot. The bread must
be white. Tomato sauce (ketchup, if you will) is optional.
Less well-informed
parts of the world have a quite different concept of a potato sandwich, as the
following recipes show. First, from America:
A New Sandwich to Please the
Palate.
For
luncheon or tea try these Parmentier sandwiches. Cut thin rectangles of bread
from a sandwich loaf, not too fresh, cook by steam potatoes with skins. Remove
the jackets and when cool cut into thin rondelles. Arrange them carefully on
one-half of the rectangles of bread.
Then
make a good mayonnaise dressing, using a little mustard. Spread the other
halves of the bread, and join with the others to make neat sandwiches. Put them
on a plate and in a moistened linen. Place under a heavy weight for three or
four hours before serving.
Rochester
Evening Journal and the Post Express... February 12,
1925
And secondly,
the nineteenth century celebrity chef version from the big southern city of
London, England:
Potato
Sandwiches.
Sauté the slices
of beef as directed for bubble and squeak, cover one side of each piece with
mashed potatoes a quarter of an inch in thickness, egg and bread-crumb over,
then proceed the same with the other sides, fry in hot fat of a light brown
colour, as you would a sole, and serve. Any kind of fresh meat may be used the
same way.
The Modern Housewife (1851)
by Alexis Soyer
4 comments:
The Rochester Evening Journal version reads too elegant for words, tho' throw away the bread and you would be left with a decent potato salad. How enjoyable to read "Sauté the slices of beef as directed for bubble and squeak" from Soyer. Also, for my taste, better minus the bread.
My favorite way to eat a potato chip sandwich is with chicken or tuna salad.
When I was a child in the late 1940s, my brother and I would make sandwiches from whatever my mother served for dinner. We put meat, mashed potatoes, a bit of gravy, peas...whatever...on a slice of bread, put another piece of bread on top, and consumed our meal that way. We thought we were being original!
When I was in the Middle East, I learned that a lot of the roadside hot food stands that sold falafel, schwarma, etc, offered chips (french fries) but not on the side...rather, stuck in the pita bread with the chicken, lamb, or whatever.
I never could bring myself to try one.
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