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Broiled Oysters (Choose the finest and largest)
Choose the finest and largest oysters, being careful to see that no particles of shell remain among the oysters. Dry with a clean linen cloth; sprinkle pepper and salt over them, and roll in finely-sifted cracker. Put on a gridiron over a bright quick fire, and as soon as they plump, plunge each one into a bowl of melted butter; place on a hot dish and garnish with curled parsley.
A late-Victorian method for shucked oysters cooked dry over coals rather than in liquid. Almost everything depends on pulling them off the heat the moment they firm up.
- The hinge: "as soon as they plump"Large oysters need roughly a minute to a minute and a half a side over a hot fire. The edges ruffle and the body tightens; that is the signal. Oysters held past that point shed their liquor and turn to rubber, and no amount of butter recovers them.
- "Finely-sifted cracker"Cracker crumbs, not flour and not modern breadcrumbs. Soda crackers or oyster crackers crushed and passed through a sieve give the fine, sandy coating intended here; panko is too coarse and too absorbent.
- Drying is not optionalA wet oyster will not take the crumb and will steam rather than brown. Blot each one thoroughly on a towel — the linen cloth of the original is simply what was to hand.
- "A bright quick fire"Hardwood coals burned down to a glow, hot enough that you cannot hold a hand above the grate. A gas grill on high or a cast-iron grill pan set over high heat gets you there; an overhead broiler at its top setting works, though you lose the smoke.
- GridironA gridiron stood above the coals on short legs; hinged wire broilers of this kind were also used for small, delicate items. A fine-mesh grill basket or a perforated grill pan is the modern substitute — oysters this size drop through standard grill grates once they slacken.
- The butter bath"Plunge each one into a bowl of melted butter" means exactly that: a bowl of warm melted butter beside the fire, each oyster dipped as it comes off. Keep the butter warm rather than hot, so it does not separate before you use it.
- Buying the oystersAsk for shucked select or counts, the larger grades. Oysters sold in the shell today are often on the small side; a dozen large shucked oysters will serve about two as a course.
- Curled parsleyCurly parsley, crisped in ice water for half an hour, then shaken dry. It was standard nineteenth-century plate architecture rather than a flavouring.
Broiled oysters belong to the long American stretch when oysters were cheap, abundant and eaten in quantity — Chesapeake and Long Island Sound beds supplied cities by the barrel, and oyster cookery of the period was extensive enough to fill a chapter of its own in many general cookbooks. A dry, crumbed broil over coals suited the biggest specimens, the ones too fine to be lost in a stew or a scallop; the aim is a smoky exterior and a barely-set interior. The gridiron itself was a piece of open-hearth equipment that survived into the range era, and a recipe like this one sits at the seam between the two, assuming a cook who could still judge a fire by its brightness rather than by a dial. Oyster consumption fell in the twentieth century as the great beds were overfished and polluted, which is why a dish once treated as everyday reads today as a luxury.