Ring In The New

Traditionally in the US, New Year’s Day passes quietly, with most people sleeping in, recovering from hangovers, and watching football (okay, so at some point it stops passing quietly).  There is no customary New Year’s feast unless you’re a southerner and sit down to collard greens and hopping john as a delicious way to ensure prosperity during the upcoming twelve months.  The rest of us snack our way through the day, usually with a television set in front of us.

These are from 500 Tasty Snacks; Ideas for Entertaining, produced by the indefatigable Ruth Berolzheimer and her minions at the Chicago Culinary Arts Institute.  My copy was published in 1940 and re-issued in 1949.

Olive Pinwheels

6 T ground boiled ham

2 T mayonnaise

1 t horseradish

1 loaf sandwich brad

4 T butter

6 stuffed olives

Combine ham, mayonnaise and horse-radish.  Remove all crusts from bread.  Cut bread lengthwise into slices ¼ inch thick.  Spread with softened butter and with ham mixture.  Place olives in a line crosswise at 1 end of the bread; roll bread starting at the end of slice.  Wrap roll in damp cloth or in oiled paper and place in refrigerator for several hours.  When ready to serve cut crosswise into slices any thickness desired.  This makes sufficient filling for 1 full-length slice of bread which will cut 8 thin pinwheels.

Hot Crab-Meat Canapés

½ cup salad dressing (and I think they mean oil and vinegar here)

½ t prepared mustard

1 t Worcestershire sauce

2 t grated horseradish

1 ½ c flaked crab meat

2 shallow croustades

½ c grated Parmesan cheese

Mix salad dressing, mustard, Worcestershire sauce and horseradish with crab meat.  Heap mixture into croustades, top with cheese and brown in moderate oven.

That actually sounds pretty good, if you left off the cheese.

Filled Beets

Marinate small cooked beets overnight in French dressing (again, they mean oil and vinegar).  Remove centers and fill with paste made of hard-cooked eggs, dry mustard, minced sweet pickles, salt, pepper and mayonnaise.

I love beets so I’d make a bee-line to this dish on the buffet table. 

Happy New Year to all; may the world have a much better 2012 than it did a 2011.  I keep reminding myself that I still have a job, a house and a husband, but I’m one of the lucky ones.

(Vintage Russian New Year's postcard from mazaika.com, who is very nice about letting people use his images).