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Oyster Cocktail (For Twelve)
Seven teaspoons of horse-radish, seven teaspoons of vinegar, ten teaspoons of lemon juice, one teaspoon of tabasco sauce, salt to taste, one quart of oysters for twelve people. Serve in glasses.- Mrs L. M. Powers.
A sauce formula rather than a method: the proportions are given in teaspoons because the whole thing was mixed in a cup and spooned over cold raw oysters. A few notes on quantities and sourcing.
- What a quart of oysters isShucked oysters were sold by liquid measure. A quart is roughly 24 to 36 small oysters depending on size, which works out to two or three per glass — a taste before dinner, not a course.
- Sourcing matters more than anything elseThese are served raw. Buy shellstock or shucked oysters from a dealer who can show the harvest tag, keep them at refrigerator temperature until the moment of serving, and discard any shell that gapes and will not close. Raw oysters are not advisable for anyone pregnant, immunocompromised, or with liver disease, and warm-water Vibrio risk is highest in summer.
- HorseradishSeven teaspoons of freshly grated horseradish and seven of jarred prepared horseradish are not the same thing — the jarred product is already cut with vinegar and is milder. If using prepared, hold back some of the vinegar and taste.
- VinegarAssume plain white or cider vinegar. Malt or wine vinegars will shout over the oysters.
- Heat levelOne teaspoon of Tabasco spread across twelve portions is mild by current standards. Mix the sauce, taste it on a spoon, and adjust before it meets the oysters.
- Drain and chillDrain the oyster liquor off or the sauce turns to a thin wash in the glass. Chill sauce and oysters separately and combine shortly before serving; prolonged contact with the acid will begin to firm and cloud the oysters.
- The glassesThe recipe specifies only that it be served in glasses; small stemmed glasses or cups would suit.
The oyster cocktail belongs to the American period when "cocktail" could mean an appetiser as readily as a drink — a chilled, sharply seasoned first course served in a glass, generally traced to the last quarter of the nineteenth century and appearing on hotel and club menus by the 1890s. Oysters were cheap and abundant: rail and refrigerated shipping put shucked Eastern oysters, sold by the quart, into inland kitchens where the shells never arrived. That such a recipe is credited to a contributor, Mrs L. M. Powers, and given in teaspoons rather than cups suggests how it circulated — a set of proportions passed between cooks, exact about the seasoning and silent about everything a cook was assumed to know already. The tomato-based version most Americans now picture became standard later; sauces of this kind were built on horseradish, vinegar, lemon and pepper sauce.