RECIPES FOR OLIVE SANDWICHES…
One way to make them is the way my mother liked them best…
Ingredients: Lots of green olives with pimentos sliced into flat circles, Miracle Whip, and extra thin Pepperidge Farm white sandwich bread.
Spread Miracle Whip on each slice of bread. With Miracle Whip facing up, place olives (neatly J) in a single layer on bottom slice. Place top slice, Miracle Whip facing down, over olive covered bottom half. Make SURE to cut the crust off, because as my mother says, “I had to eat the crust when I was a little girl, but I don’t have to anymore”! Enjoy it and make another one because one just won’t be enough to satisfy the craving you’ll get for them. I think the saltiness of the olives make them quite addictive.
My English grandmother, Gaga, liked to make little canapé sandwiches for luncheons or just anytime. Some might have cucumbers and cream cheese, or egg salad with mayonnaise, or chicken liver pate, etc, etc. She loved to add dandelion greens to everything and maybe add a pansy or other flowers on the tray for decoration.
She made olive sandwiches for my mom when she was a kid, (she’s the one who made my mother eat the crust because you didn’t waste anything in the 1930’s).
Sometimes she would chop up the green olives and mix with Miracle Whip then spread it on bread and slice it into two triangles or four little squares for canapés.
Sometimes she mixed it with cream cheese instead of Miracle Whip (this is becoming a not so subliminal “plug” for Miracle Whip)! In the 40’s and 50’s, Bordens came up with a little jar of pimento cream cheese (you could use it as a juice glass afterwards). You can still find it in most grocery stores (it is a light orange color because of the pimentos). It looks good spread on an open-faced canapé adding a sliced green olive with pimento on top. Yummmmm!
These days we can buy (or make) an olive tapenade and mix it in with the cream cheese. It’s often a more exotic type of olive.
As you can see, there’s not one perfect way to make an excellent olive sandwich. They’re ALL perfect! These are just three ingredient recipes but I’m sure people have concocted their very own versions with all kinds of different olives or that have extra ingredients.
Tell Us How You Make 'Em!
Olive Sandwich lovers UNITE and let us know your very own perfect recipe for this strange and wonderful sandwich. Email us at info@olivesandwiches.com