Sunday Vintage Recipe Roulette: 1946 Goblin Sandwiches from the Doughnut Corporation of America's Halloween Cookbook
Is it the worst sandwich in history? It's even Worcestershire than that.
Vintage recipes are my greatest joy in life. They’re a little time capsule into a specific moment in time, and sometimes they’re forgotten gems that make it into regular menu rotation at my house. Other times, they’re good for hysterical laughter, or a horror show.
There’s one that has always stood above the rest to me, from a little Doughnut Corporation of America cookbooklet called How to Run a 1946 Halloween Party. (It’s 100% worth reading the story of the writer, Adolph Levitt, who invented the first donut machine and set about a one-man mission to elevate donut quality in America.) This book was designed to sell doughnuts…a lot of doughnuts. Every game and recipe uses donuts, but one titan stands above the rest. It’s a recipe so hideous even its mother has to think for several minutes before deciding she loves it: Goblin Sandwiches.
As you’ll see from this photo of the main ingredients, like the mythological monster Cerberus, this recipe features three slavering, monstrous flavor-accent heads, each more terrifying than the last:
Brazil nuts are objectively the worst nut. Oh, they’re healthy, I’ll grant you, but I don’t care how much selenium they have; I’d rather consume any number of regrettable foods than a Brazil nut — raisins, kiwi with the fur still on, a Bud Light Eggnog Seltzer.
And, deviled ham is revolting. It has enough salt to float a water buffalo. I just made a little bit, unwilling as I am to buy a whole tin for one sandwich. I added a little smidge of hot sauce and a huge smidge (hudge? smudge?) of extra salt. Although my usual Southern style recipe* is yummy, with the extra era-authentic salt, it’s almost inedible.
Finally, Worcestershire is delicious…but on a donut? I did like the Hellmann’s snickerdoodles, and the Hidden Valley Ranch nog, so I’m going to keep an open mind, but I also stand ready to slam it shut at a moment’s notice.
The first thing you’ll notice when you mix it up is that, just as the color wheel indicates, when you mix pink and green, you get brown. And then you add more brown Worcestershire, and then there’s nothing to keep the avo from browning.
Poor little innocent donut. The bell tolls for thee.
I worked really hard to polish this thing up, photographing it in the sunset’s “golden hour” and using the typical serving suggestion from the Doughnut Corp’s body of work: lettuce leaves. I think it only serves to highlight the threatening brown aura of the spread. This is the perfect accompaniment to pre-trick-or-treat prep, in horrifying spirit if not good taste.
Beverage pairing suggestion: Hemlock.
Here it is, the yawning, nihilist maw of oblivion delivered via harmless and universally beloved breakfast pastry. It seems perversely and unnecessarily cruel, like that time the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man attacked Dan Akroyd. Okay. I’m going to attempt to ingest this thing.
The good news is that you can’t taste the Brazil nuts at all. The bad news? You certainly can taste everything else, in gory detail. It’s heavy on the doughnut flavor up top, very sweet, but the back end of the flavor is as briny as a salt lick in Utah, and there’s a disconcerting tang from the mayo and Worcestershire. The cake-style doughnut is dragged down with pasty spread, so the mouthfeel is like buttered mud. I’ve had sweet and savory sandwiches that worked well, like a grilled cheese with apple and mustard, or a Monte Cristo with fig jam. In this case, however, the flavors are duking it out like Predator vs. Alien. No one wins.
I don’t like to waste food and really try to eat what I try, but friends, I just couldn’t do it. I had two bites so that I could describe the flavor, but that was all I could stand.
It’s the Worcestershire that makes it the Worcest thing I’ve ever eaten.
The grave insult to injury? Not only is it terrible, but it ruins a donut, and as we all know, that’s a cursed sin akin to killing a unicorn.
Enjoy the Halloween festivities, y’all, but if you’re serving Goblin Sandwiches? Just save me the hole.
*Vegetarian or vegan? I prefer not to eat things I’ve known socially, too. Homemade deviled ham works really well with commercially-available vegan sandwich-y ham like Yves or Lightlife, and there’s a convincing soy-free recipe from This Healthy Kitchen here — if you use a little beet juice in place of some of the tomato paste, you get a pink-er color. If you use the latter, which is already softer, just mix with a fork instead of using the food processor.