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Oyster Loaf
Take a large loaf of Vienna bread and cut off the top crust. Take out all the crumb and rub it up (as for dressing).
Season with pepper, salt and butter. A dash of red pepper gives a finer flavor than black or white. Do not have the bread too fresh, as it will not crumb fine. Then take froma quart to three pints of welldrained oysters, putting in a layer of the seasoned crumb first, then a layer of oysters, till all is used up, keeping crumb for the top layer. When all is pressed in, generous pieces of butter are laid on. Replace top crust and bake for 40 minutes in a good oven. Try not to scorch the loaf, as many enjoy the crust.
Serve hot with or without green peas and Saratoga chips. You will find this is a good dish for either supper or luncheon.
A hollowed loaf packed with seasoned crumb and oysters, baked whole. The recipe assumes a cook who knows what a quart of shucked oysters looks like and what "a good oven" means; here are the numbers.
- The hinge: drain the oysters hardShucked oysters carry a great deal of liquor, and any of it left in the loaf will turn the crumb layers to paste and soften the crust from the inside. Drain in a sieve for several minutes and blot before layering. Save the liquor for a sauce or a chowder rather than pouring it in.
- "A good oven"The phrase is not tied to a number anywhere in the book; a moderately hot oven, somewhere in the region of 375F, is a reasonable modern reading. Forty minutes at that heat should set the crumb and cook the oysters through; the caution against scorching is about the crust, which will darken before the centre is done. Tent loosely with foil if it colours early.
- How many oystersA quart to three pints of shucked oysters is roughly 2 to 3 lb; the number of oysters that represents varies a good deal with grade and size. Standard shucked oysters sold in tubs are the right thing; do not substitute smoked or canned.
- Vienna breadA long, crisp-crusted white loaf with a soft interior. Any firm oval or bâtard-shaped white loaf works, so long as the crust holds its shape once emptied. The direction to use day-old bread is sound: fresh crumb smears instead of crumbling.
- "Red pepper"Cayenne in the usage of this period, not paprika and not fresh chilli. A quarter teaspoon is enough for a loaf this size; it is there for warmth behind the oysters rather than heat you notice.
- Saratoga chipsThin fried potato slices, the direct ancestor of the potato crisp. Any good kettle-style chip stands in, or slice potatoes paper-thin and fry them yourself.
- Yield and servingA loaf on this scale serves four to six at lunch or supper. Cut it across in thick slices with a serrated knife, and let it settle five minutes out of the oven so the filling does not slump.
The oyster loaf belongs to a family of dishes found on both sides of the Atlantic in the nineteenth century, in which a hollowed loaf served as both vessel and crust. Its best-known relative is the New Orleans médiatrice, or peacemaker, a butter-crisped loaf filled with fried oysters that a man was traditionally said to bring home to his wife after a late night out; the story is folklore, but the dish itself was genuinely sold from oyster saloons and street stalls. Versions like this baked one turn up throughout North American household cookery of the era, when oysters were cheap, abundant and shipped inland by rail in barrels and tins, so that a Canadian kitchen could treat two or three pounds of them as an economical supper rather than a luxury. The Five Roses Cook Book, issued by the Lake of the Woods Milling Company to promote its flour, was compiled largely from recipes sent in by Canadian housewives, which accounts for the conversational voice here.