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Oyster Soup (Pour one quart of cold water)
Pour one quart of cold water over one quart of oysters if solid; if not solid, one pint of water; drain through a colander into a soup kettle, and when it boils, skim, add pepper and then the oysters; season with butter and salt; then add one quart of rich new milk, brought to boiling point in a tin pail set in a pot of boiling water; let boil up and serve at once. Or, instead of adding milk, place it boiling hot in tureen, pour the soup over it, then serve. -Mrs. W. H. Smith, Fr., Parkersburg, West Va.
A plain oyster stew of the sort that filled the soup chapter of every American community cookbook around 1900. The technique is sound; only the timings and the vessels need translating.
- Do not boil the oystersThe instruction to "let boil up" is the one thing to ignore. Oysters need about two minutes in hot liquid, just until the edges ruffle; held at a boil they tighten into rubber. Add them at the very end, off a hard boil.
- "Solid" oystersShucked oysters were sold by the quart in their own liquor, and "solid" appears to mean well-drained, mostly meat with little liquid. Loose or watery oysters carry their own broth, which is why the recipe halves the added water to a pint. A quart of shucked oysters is roughly 2 lb; the count varies with grade, from about two dozen large to four dozen or more smaller ones.
- What the rinse water is forThe cold water poured over the oysters and drained off through the colander becomes the soup base; it carries the liquor. A colander catches shell fragments but not fine grit, so strain it through cloth if you want it clear, and skim as it comes to the boil, as the recipe directs.
- "Rich new milk"New milk is fresh, unskimmed milk straight from the dairy, richer than modern whole milk. Whole milk with a splash of cream, or half-and-half, is closer to the intent.
- The tin pail in boiling waterAn improvised double boiler. Scalding milk over direct heat scorches it and can curdle it against the acid oyster liquor; a bowl over simmering water, or very gentle direct heat with constant stirring, does the same job.
- The second methodThe alternative — hot milk in the tureen, soup poured over — is the better one for texture, since the oysters never meet a boiling pot at all. Heat the tureen first or the whole thing arrives lukewarm.
- SeasoningButter and salt are given without amounts. Two to three tablespoons of butter for this quantity is usual, and salt should go in last: oyster liquor is already saline and varies considerably.
- YieldRoughly three quarts finished — a quart of water, a quart of oysters and a quart of milk — serving six to eight. Oyster crackers or dry toast are the period accompaniment.
Oyster soup appears in a great many American cookbooks of the nineteenth century because oysters were cheap, abundant and shipped inland in kegs and cans once the railroads reached the Chesapeake. A West Virginia contributor could reasonably expect to buy shucked oysters by the quart in winter, which is why so many of these recipes assume the measure. The version here is the milk-based stew rather than the older water-and-butter kind, and the fussy business of scalding the milk in a tin pail set in boiling water reflects a real hazard of the coal range: uneven, fierce bottom heat that would scorch milk in seconds. Community cookbooks like this one collected such recipes over signatures, and this one is attributed to Mrs. W. H. Smith of Parkersburg.