Let’s see, I don’t have an estate on which to catch salmon. The best I can do is wear hip-waders to my favorite seafood store on Mass Ave.
I’m torn as to whether to put on cuke or not.
On the one hand, it might make me seem poncey. Since I don’t know what poncey means, I will blindly accept it as a wholly flattering thing to be, and assume that using cucumber will make me sophisticated, aristocratic and witty. And maybe French.
On the other hand, I don’t own the aforementioned estate on which to be poncey, so I might be found out as a colonial rube aping my betters. Sheesh - I didn’t even know what a salmon sandwich was supposed to be!
BTW, I have foil pouches of salmon, which seems to be the latest innovation in fish-canning technology. Tear off top, no liquid to drain, no spinal column to remove. Supposedly no tinny taste.
poncen.1. A man who is pretentious in an effeminite manner. Ponces (quite often referred to using the phrase perfume ponce) tend to grown their hair quite long and talk loudly into their mobile phone while sitting at the traffic lights in their convertible Porsche. Describing a place as “poncy” would imply that these sorts of punters made up the bulk of its clientele. 2. To scrounge - i.e. “can I ponce a cigarette off you?”. I’m told that the word originally meant living off the earnings of prostitution.
Indeed a ponce is all of the above as well as being a term or what colonials call a pimp.
Cucumber in sandwiches is poncey - Branston pickle or Daddies sauce is not (although not recommended for salmon). A gerkin wouldn’t be poncey.
Basically it come down to this:
Not poncey: Tinned salmon (which is cheap and a bit ropey to be honest) on white bread - no cucumber. Crust still on, and definately not cut into triangles.
This referes to a smoked salmon sandwich. You must use brown bread, plenty of smoked salmon, some capers and either cream cheese or creme fraiche to taste.
In other words - it’s just like a bagel, except it’s a sandwich.
What no-one has explained so far is that salmon used to be a very expensive fish. They were caught in fresh water by line only. Wasting such a fish in a sandwich of all things was a sign that you had more money than you knew what to do with.
Now, however, with the introduction of farmed salmon (pumped full of artificial dye to mimic the pink colour of wild salmon) it’s a lot cheaper and you can buy it in tins.
owlstretchingtime, could you tell us about the connotations of prawn sandwiches? I understand they’re naff. There’s some sort of a new-money/ smoke cigars with the band on/ slightly-too-large satellite-dish vibe I’m getting from the way the term seems to be put about, and you seem rather in touch with the class markings of such things.
Roy Keane, the Man Utd footballer, was very disparaging about a section of his own supporters a few years back, describing them as the prawn sandwich brigade. By this, he meant people who know little about football, are middle class and watch the match from an executive box with “luxury” catering arrangements. I would say that this carries some overtones of new money - old money are not interested in football, apart from a few aristocratic eccentrics who would avoid the executive boxes and wouldn’t like prawn sandwiches. However, markers such as over-large satellite dishes and bands on cigars are probably more precise.
Nevertheless, it was a neat soundbite by Keane. It should not be confused with the more traditional marking of prawns which emanated from the prawn cocktail. This had its origins in the 70s as the sophisticated hors d’oeuvres for the lower middle classes.
Once upon a time prawns were quite spendy so they had a certain connotation of class and as such were a dinner party and bistro staple (the ubiquitous prawn cocktail (which I rather like) and the prawn avocado (which as Keano would say you can stick up yer bollox).
They’re now dirt cheap and as such form the basis of a lot of corporate catering - so a “prawn sandwich muncher” is shorthand for a new fan, corporately entertained wanker who has no real attachement to the game and could be at Twickenham, The opera or Chltenham races for all he or (even worse) she knows.
the prawn sandwiches are not to be confused with the wankers in jester’s hats who are a completely different kettle of prat.
Like most food that has been rendered crap in the 70s (black forest gateau; goulash; duck a l’orange; navarin of lamb etc) it’s pretty good if done well.
