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Broiled Oysters
Dry large, selected oysters in a napkin, pepper and salt, and broil on a fine folding wire-broiler, turning frequently to keep the juice from wasting. Serve immediately in a hot dish with little pieces of butter on them. Or, pepper a cup of dry bread-crumbs, dry one quart of oysters in a napkin, dip each in butter previously peppered, roll well in the crumbs, and broil over a good fire for five to seven minutes. Serve immediately in a hot dish with butter, pepper and salt.
Two versions of the same idea: naked oysters over fire, or oysters jacketed in buttered crumbs. Both live or die by timing.
- The hinge is the clockShucked oysters are done the moment the edges ruffle and the bodies firm, roughly 2 to 3 minutes total under a hot broiler for the plain version. The five to seven minutes given for the crumbed oysters is really the time needed to brown the coating over coals; under a modern broiler element they will be leathery well before that, so watch the crumbs and pull them as soon as they colour.
- Drying in a napkinNot a quaint flourish. Surface liquor makes the oysters steam rather than sear and washes the crumbs off. Lay them on a clean towel or paper and blot both sides.
- The folding wire broilerA hinged wire basket held over coals, turned as a unit — the nineteenth-century answer to the problem of flipping thirty small soft things. A hinged fish or burger grill basket does the same job on a grill. Indoors, use a preheated broiler pan set close to the element and turn the oysters once with tongs.
- "A good fire"Coals burned down to grey with no flame, held close under the food; the equivalent is a broiler run at full heat with the rack in the top position. A slow fire renders the oysters watery.
- Dip each in butterMelted butter, not softened. Season it with pepper as directed, keep it warm so it stays fluid, and drain each oyster briefly before it goes into the crumbs or the coating will slide.
- A quart of oystersShucked oysters were sold by liquid measure. A quart is roughly 24 to 36 medium oysters, around 2 lb with their liquor -- four servings as a course, six or eight as an appetiser.
- Salt at the endThe plain version salts before broiling, which draws out liquor. Oysters carry their own salinity; season lightly, and taste before adding more at the table.
- Serve immediately, and mean itThe instruction to use a hot dish is doing real work — broiled oysters go flabby and shed liquid within a couple of minutes on a cold plate. Warm the platter in the oven while the oysters cook.
Buckeye Cookery came out of Ohio in the 1870s, several hundred miles from salt water, and yet it carries a full shell-fish chapter — a good measure of what railroads and ice had done to the American table. Barrels and sealed cans of shucked oysters moved inland from Chesapeake and Gulf beds in enormous volume through the second half of the nineteenth century, and oysters became a cheap, ubiquitous food in interior cities rather than a coastal luxury; oyster saloons, oyster suppers and church oyster socials were all fixtures of Midwestern town life. Selling them by the quart, as this recipe assumes, reflects that trade: the cook bought a measure of shucked meats in liquor, not shells to open. Broiling is here directed at the largest and best oysters — the recipe specifies 'large, selected' ones.