Chopped Olive Remains a Popular Ingredient

The more things change, the more they stay the same, goes the saying. Olive spreads have been popular for many years. Some people (including the writer) believe a patty melt is only genuine if there is a olive topping, and not an onion topping. Recipes have not varied that much over the years. Modern recipes for olive tapenade include these ingredients:

Version 1
pitted Kalamata olives, coarsely chopped
rinsed, drained, and chopped capers
fresh lemon juice
olive oil
anchovy paste
black pepper

Version 2
cloves garlic, peeled
pitted Kalamata olives
capers
chopped fresh parsley
lemon juice
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Version 3
clove garlic, chopped
whole, pitted olives
anchovy fillet, rinsed
capers
chopped fresh dried thyme leaves
lemon juice
olive oil
white pepper

In a 1908 cookbook entitled, Rumford Complete Cook Book, there is a recipe for Savory Sandwiches as follows:

Savory Sandwiches
3 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon capers
6 olives
1 tablespoon chopped mustard pickle
2 teaspoons chopped parsley
a few drops of onion juice
slices of buttered white or graham bread

Beat the butter to a cream, add the capers and olives chopped finely; mix these well with the butter and stir in the pickle, parsley and onion juice, with salt if necessary. Spread between slices of either white or Graham bread, well buttered.

There are no hints in the recipe about how many servings this makes. Many recipes in the book call for the use of Rumford Baking Powder, hence the title of the book.

The Rumford book has a recipe for Graham Gems, but not for graham bread.

Graham Gems
3 cups Graham flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 rounding teaspoons Rumford Baking Powder
2 eggs
3 cups milk
2 tablespoons melted butter

Sift together the flour, salt and baking powder; beat the eggs well and add them with the milk and butter to form a batter. Bake in hot, greased gem pans in a moderately hot oven about twenty minutes.

Notes on the recipe-
Calling for a hot pan means the pan was heated in the oven before the batter was added. A moderately hot oven is 375-400 degrees. A gem pan is a specialty pan made from cast iron that resembles a muffin pan. A gem is described in an 1884 cookbook entitled, Mrs. Lincoln's Boston Cook Book, as a "muffin-like bread." The following describes gem pans and is excerpted from an online article about The Historic American Cookbook Project undertaken by Michigan State University that reviewed and created PDF page images of 76 historic American cookbooks.

"These heavy cast iron pans which were available with shallow or deep cups, were designed for baking muffins or muffin like breads called gems. Gems are "the simplest form of bread," using whole wheat or graham flour, salt, and water, no leavening, no eggs. Gem pans could be used interchangeably with popover pans. According to Franklin (p. 112): 'A gem pan is supposed to be very different from a muffin pan, but no doubt many gems were mad in muffin and popover pans.'"

Sources
The Rumford Complete Cook Book, by Lily Haxworth Wallace, Rumford chemical works, Providence, RI, 1908.
"Gem or Muffin Pan", as quoted from Mrs. Lincoln's Boston Cook Book: What To Do and What Not To Do in Cooking, by Mary Johnson Bailey Lincoln, Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1884. Taken from The Historic American Cookbook Project. http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/cookbooks/html/museum/object_036.html