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Economical Oyster Soup
1 quart oysters. 2 quarts water. Boil with salt and pepper. Cut up one tablespoonful butter with flour and put in while boiling; beat the yolks of four eggs light, mix them with one half pint milk. When the oysters are well cooked, pour on the milk and eggs, stirring all the time. Let it boil up, and take off quickly, and pour into the tureen, over toasted bread cut into dice--if preferred rich, leave out some of the water.--Mrs. Lt. Gov.M.
A thin, thrifty oyster soup thickened twice over — once with flour-worked butter, once with egg yolks. The whole thing hinges on not boiling the oysters or the yolks any longer than you must.
- Cook the oysters brieflyThe recipe only says "when the oysters are well cooked," with no timing given; shucked oysters are done in about two minutes, as soon as the edges ruffle. Beyond that they tighten into rubber and shed liquid. A practical order is to build the liquid base first, add the oysters at the end, and let the pot come back to a bare simmer.
- Save the oyster liquorA quart of shucked oysters carries roughly a cup of liquor. Strain it and count it as part of the liquid — it is most of the flavour in a soup that otherwise rests on water.
- Two quarts of water is very diluteThis is the "economical" part: two cups of liquid per cup of oysters. The closing note — "if preferred rich, leave out some of the water" — is the real instruction. Cutting to a quart of water, or replacing some with milk, gives something closer to a modern oyster stew.
- The butter and flour"Cut up one tablespoonful butter with flour" is beurre manié: butter kneaded with flour and dropped into the simmering liquid in small pieces. No flour quantity is given; an equal volume, about a tablespoon, is the usual proportion and will only lightly body two quarts of liquid.
- Temper the yolksFour yolks beaten with a half pint (one cup) of milk go in off the heat or at a bare simmer, whisked in slowly. "Let it boil up, and take off quickly" is the risky moment — yolks curdle around 180F, so bring it just to steaming and pull it. If it breaks badly it is unlikely to come back, though a slight curdle can sometimes be smoothed by blending or straining.
- SeasoningSalt and pepper are unmeasured and the base is plain water, so season in stages and taste after the oyster liquor goes in, since liquor is salty on its own. White pepper and a little cayenne are period-appropriate.
- The toast diceCut bread into small cubes, toast or dry them in a 350F oven until crisp, and put them in the tureen so the soup is poured over. Added to the pot instead, they dissolve.
- YieldRoughly three quarts finished — eight or so servings as a first course, five or six as a supper dish.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879), compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by some 250 Virginia housekeepers, is full of recipes credited only by initial and title, as this one is to "Mrs. Lt. Gov. M." Oysters were not a luxury in the Chesapeake of that decade; the bay's beds were being worked at their peak, barrels moved inland by rail, and cheap oysters turned up in soups, fritters, patties and stuffings throughout the volume. What makes this version "economical" is not the oysters but the liquid: two quarts of plain water for the body of the soup, with only a half pint of milk added at the end with the yolks, stretched with a spoonful of butter, which is how a cook fed a table when dairy was dearer than shellfish. The egg-yolk-and-milk liaison, added at the last moment and never allowed a true boil, is an older thickening habit than the roux-based cream soups that displaced it in American cookbooks over the following generation.