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Oyster Cocktail (For Eight)
Mix together the strained juice of half a lemon, one-half teaspoon of vinegar, eight drops of tabasco sauce, one-half teaspoon of horse-radish and one-half teaspoon of tomato catsup. Add eight oysters and let stand five minutes. Do not chop large oysters, but use blue points or a small oyster. Have glasses chilled before filling. Use claret or cocktail glasses. Mrs J. T. Baxter.
A raw oyster cocktail from the era when the course opened a formal dinner. The instructions are sound, but the proportions as printed do not match the title, and the shopping has changed more than the method.
- The yield does not add upEight oysters and about a tablespoon of total sauce will not serve eight people. Read this as one portion — eight small oysters in a glass — and multiply the whole thing by eight for a party of that size.
- Blue pointsA Blue Point is a small Long Island oyster, historically from Great South Bay and now a loose trade name for any small, mild Atlantic oyster. Any cocktail-size oyster of about two to three inches works; the point of the instruction is that the oyster be small enough to swallow whole rather than chopped.
- Buy them shucked-to-order or shuck your ownOysters for raw service should be alive until opened, tightly closed or closing when tapped, and kept at refrigerator temperature on ice with the cupped shell down. Tubs of pre-shucked oysters sold for frying are not suitable here.
- Who should not eat thisRaw oysters carry a real risk of Vibrio infection, which is severe in people with liver disease, weakened immunity, or iron overload, and in pregnancy. No amount of lemon juice, vinegar or tabasco reduces that risk. Cook oysters for anyone in those groups.
- Five minutes and no longerThe acid in the lemon and vinegar will gradually firm and opacify the oyster; left to stand much longer it moves from dressed towards pickled and the texture suffers. Dress, chill briefly, serve.
- Horse-radishThe half-teaspoon measure suggests prepared horseradish in vinegar rather than the freshly grated root, which is sharper. If you grate your own, use less.
- Tomato catsupPeriod catsup was thinner and more sharply spiced than modern ketchup, which is noticeably sweeter. A half teaspoon of today's ketchup will read sweeter in the glass; a little extra vinegar corrects it.
- Claret glassesA stemmed glass of roughly five to six ounces. Chill the glasses hard — an hour in the freezer.
The oyster cocktail belongs to the last decades of American oyster abundance, when Chesapeake and Long Island beds supplied eastern markets cheaply and oysters opened dinners at every level of household. The name is borrowed from the barroom: served in a stemmed cocktail glass, with a sharp seasoned liquor standing in for spirits, it is often said to have given a temperance-minded dinner table something with the shape of a first drink, though this is supposition rather than documented origin. Tabasco, made in Louisiana since the 1860s, and bottled tomato catsup were both by 1900 ordinary pantry goods rather than novelties, which is why a recipe like this could assume them without comment. The attribution to Mrs J. T. Baxter is characteristic of the contributed recipe printed under its contributor's name, a practice common to community and charity cookbooks alike.