The thing about old cookbooks is to take what is useful and leave what is, well, potentially lethal. Twelve out of twelve cookbooks consulted, all written from the 1950s to the 1980s, recommended deviled eggs for a picnic. One went so far as to suggest that you fill a wide mouth thermos with these unstable little appetizers. Under no circumstances do this. Nothing good has every come from adding mayonnaise, no matter how fancy or French, to cooked eggs and then vacillating their temperature even for a short while. Invariably, they go unattended and are ingested by the young, the naïve, the inebriated or the dog.

Some Good Ideas from Vintage Cookbooks

Contemporary sandwich cookbooks have recipes that tend to be beautiful works of sculpture with impossibly creative ingredient combinations. Most, however, are too delicate to survive a picnic basket. If you are in the market for such a book the recipes and photos in Sandwiches of the World are brilliant. Adding old to new -- one could take the artistry from a book such as this and apply the common sense and know-how from the old-school cookbooks to come up with your own creations that travel well. (Excluding, of course, the practices that time has proven to be misguided.)

All the vintage cookbook authors stressed structural integrity for picnic sandwiches, but they went about it in different ways.

Butter the bread:

Europeans tend to do this more than most. A very thin coating from edge to edge of great butter, maybe even flavored butter, seals the bread from what’s between it. Many people resist this because of calories and the other condiments, but it really works. Lemon pepper butter works nicely with most any sandwich, but in particular, chicken or beef sandwichs. Mix the butter to taste with lemon zest and freshly cracked green peppercorn. (Most traditional teaching cookbooks will have several recipes and instructions for this kitchen staple.)

Inside Wrapper:

At first, this method may seem odd, but it makes makes sense and it works. Here goes. Top each bread slice with a piece of wax paper slightly larger than the bread. Then build the sandwich with half of the ingredients on each slice of bread. Either spread the condiments in between the ingredients or on top of the stack. Put the two sides of the sandwich together and wrap the sandwich with more wax paper. Most importantly, remember to tell your friends to slip out the waxed paper before eating. (And sure, you can use parchment paper instead.)

The Scoop:

Most of the cookbooks had recipes for portable meals made by scooping out rolls, croissants, muffins, and even potatoes. Paper and tea towels were used to firmly secure the picnic sandwiches for travel. The Picnics and Camping section of the Colorado Cache Cookbook offers a recipe that’s uses the scoop method and is a simple enough guide for warm breakfast sandwichs built to go. The recipe is given verbatim for its time stamp. Updating suggestions follow.

The Red Rocks Ham Roll

 

2 cups cubed ham

¾ pound grated cheddar cheese

1 large onion chopped

1 41/2 ounce can chopped ripe green olives

1 4 oz can chopped green chiles

1 8 oz can tomato juice

2 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

10-12 hard rolls

 

Mix all ingredients together except the rolls. Set aside. Slice the tops off the hard rolls, scoop out inside (save for bread crumbs) and fill with ham-cheese mixture. Replace the tops and wrap individually in foil. Bake in a very slow oven 275 degrees to one hour. Wrap in paper or heavy kitchen towel and take to picnic site.

 

Updating this recipe

There is nothing wrong with the canned ingredients, but if there is fresh on hand, why not. Other versions of this sandwich could include (pre-cooked) chicken sausage and any favorite cheese. Vegetables can be easily substituted for the meat. In one version, we eliminated the tomato juice but used sausage, Vidalia onions and a jar of roasted red pepper (drained) with good results. A regional note: the term hard roll in the west means a dinner roll rather than the hard roll of New York egg sandwich fame. Lastly, we dialed down the cooking temperature and time since typically higher temperatures and longer times are general required at high altitudes.

Thank you to the publishers of the Colorado Cache Cookbook for permission to post this recipe. And for the picnic and camping reminder in the pages of the cookbook to "Take nothing and leave nothing."