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Oysters, Loaves Of
Beard one dozen oysters, and put the beards into a saucepan with the oyster liquid, as much thick cream as will cover them, a quarter of an inch of mace, a grate or two of nutmeg, two inches of thin lemon-rind, and a slight sprinkling of cayenne. Boil for ten minutes, strain the sauce, and put it back into the saucepan, with the oysters finely minced, a dessert-spoonful of lemon-juice, and a quarter of a pint of thick cream, thickened with a dessert-spoonful of dried flour. Stir the mixture over the fire for a minute, then put it into the loaves, prepared as follows. Slice the tops off three or four small French rolls, scoop out the crumb, and plunge the rolls into as much hot lard as will cover them entirely, and let them remain till they are brightly browned all over. Drain them well, fill them with the oyster mixture, and serve in a dish garnished with fried bread-crumbs. Time, a few minutes to brown the loaves. Probable cost of oysters, 1s. 6d. to 3s. per dozen. Sufficient for six or eight persons.
A Victorian savoury: fried bread cases filled with a creamed oyster mince. The technique is sound, but several of the measures and one of the ingredients need translating.
- The hinge: one minute, no moreThe minced oysters go into the finished sauce and are stirred over heat for a minute only. The ten-minute boil applies to the beards and aromatics, which are strained out; if the oysters themselves boil they tighten into rubber.
- BeardsThe frill of dark gill tissue around the oyster. It is edible but tough, and here it is used purely as a flavour base for the infused cream, then discarded with the mace and lemon peel.
- Old measuresA dessert-spoonful is about 2 teaspoons. A quarter of a pint, in British Imperial, is 5 fl oz — roughly 2/3 US cup. "A quarter of an inch of mace" means a short piece of blade mace, not ground; substitute a generous pinch of ground mace if blade is unavailable.
- Dried flourPlain flour dried out in a low oven and sieved, an old practice to keep it lump-free and free of raw taste. Ordinary plain flour whisked into a little cold cream first does the same job.
- French rollsSmall crusty white rolls — the modern equivalent is a petit pain or a small crusty bap, not a baguette. Scoop the crumb out cleanly and leave the walls thick enough to hold up under frying.
- Frying the casesHot lard, deep enough to cover them; the recipe allows a few minutes to brown them, and they must be drained well or the shells go greasy. Fill them only just before serving, or the sauce softens the crust.
- YieldStated as six to eight persons for three or four rolls, which suggests these were served as a small savoury course or a supper dish, perhaps split in half — not as a main.
- Cost noteThe 1s. 6d. to 3s. per dozen is a period price for oysters in Britain; the price relationship with bread and cream has since shifted a long way.
Stuffed and fried bread cases run through English cookery under several names — croustades, petits pains farcis, and in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries simply "loaves", filled with everything from minced chicken to sweetbreads. Oysters were the natural filling in Britain until the later nineteenth century, when they were cheap, plentiful and sold by the barrel in every town; native beds around Whitstable, Colchester and the Firth of Forth supplied them in enormous quantity, and it is often said that oysters were the food of the poor before overfishing and disease in the oyster beds pushed the price beyond ordinary reach.