Black & White Sandwiches, from the Arrow Book of Easy Cooking

The Arrow Book of Easy Cooking was published in 1962 by Scholastic Book Services.

It is a cookbook intended for kids, and to that end all the recipes in the book are prepared without any cooking! After a few, quick kitchen tips the book tells readers, “Now go ahead – cook without cooking, and have fun!” Huh?

Because there is no cooking in the prep, and they don’t call for “leftovers”, many of the recipes include at least one canned ingredient – soup, vegetables, meat, potatoes. The recipe for Baked Apples in Vanilla Sauce calls for “2 cans baked apples”!

I like any cookbook that encourages kids to cook – or cook without cooking, if need be. It’s especially nice that this one is not targeted only to girls.

The recipes are categorized as Appetizers, Soups, Salads, and Desserts. There are also special party menus for Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, and Halloween.

It is a cute little cookbook, with whimsical drawings of cheerful boys and girls, cheerful pets, cheerful fruit that are waiting to be peeled and chopped. And the food sounds fun too.

There is a zesty little dip recipe that caught my eye, with the catchy name, “Special Dip”. It is cream cheese combined with catsup, French dressing, and Tabasco sauce.

Or how about Macaroni & Bologna Salad? Macaroni and cheese (canned, of course) combined with chopped pepper, olives, and celery, layered between lettuce leaves and slices of bologna in triple-decker stacks!  It sounds like a recipe that a kid would come up with without help from a cookbook… while raiding the fridge on an afternoon home alone!

Black & White Sandwiches 

This recipe is from the Arrow Book of Easy Cooking. The ingredients and directions are formatted below as they appear in the cookbook.

You will need:

12 slices white bread

12 slices pumpernickel or whole wheat bread

1 pound ready-made Cheddar cheese spread

1/2 pound ready-made deviled ham spread

You will use:

Bread board

Spreading knife

Wax paper

Cutting knife

Paper doily

Platter

Prepare them this way:

1. Make 2 separate stacks of bread. Each stack should have 3 slices of white bread and 3 slices of black pumpernickel or whole wheat bread.
2. Take the first stack and spread 2 slices of pumpernickel or whole wheat bread with Cheddar cheese spread. Spread 3 slices of white bread with deviled ham spread. On top of a piece of dark bread with Cheddar cheese, put a piece of white bread with deviled ham. Then on top of the white bread put a piece of dark bread with cheese, then another piece of white bread with ham, and top it with the unspread slice of dark bread. Press the stack together with your hands and wrap it in a piece of wax paper. Put it into the refrigerator for at least 3 hours.
3. Do the other 2 stacks of bread in exactly the same way and put them into the refrigerator with the first one.
4. After all 3 stacks have been chilled in the refrigerator for 3 hours, take them out and cut each stack lengthwise into 1/2-inch slices. Then cut each slice into 3 strips. The sandwiches will look like ribbons and be very pretty. They’ll taste good too.