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Oyster Soup (Take two quarts of oysters)
Take two quarts of oysters, wash them, and add, 2 quarts water. A bundle of herbs. 1 small onion sliced.
Let it boil until all the substance is out of the oysters Strain the liquor from the ingredients and put it back in the pot. Add a large spoonful butter mixed with flour. Have ready two dozen oysters to throw in just as it is ready to be dished--at the same time stir up two yolks of eggs with a cup of cream. Cayenne pepper is an improvement.--Mrs. E. W.
A two-stage oyster soup: the first batch is sacrificed for flavour, the second goes in at the last moment. Everything depends on keeping the finished soup below a simmer once the eggs and cream are in.
- The hinge: never boil after the liaisonYolks beaten with cream will curdle at anything approaching a boil. Temper them with a ladle of hot soup first, stir the mixture in off the heat, and return the pot only to a gentle steam.
- Two quarts of oystersShucked oysters are sold by volume in liquor; two quarts is roughly 4 lb. The number of individual oysters in that volume varies a good deal with size and grade. This is a large, expensive quantity today and the recipe scales down proportionally without trouble.
- Don't discard the liquorWash the oysters in their own liquor rather than under the tap, then strain it through a cloth and count it as part of the two quarts of water. Rinsing oysters in fresh water washes away most of what you are making soup from.
- "Until all the substance is out"The first batch is being treated as stock, not as food, so long cooking is intentional here — 20 to 30 minutes is enough to spend them. The oysters themselves are strained out and thrown away.
- The finishing oystersThe final two dozen need no more than two minutes in hot liquid, just until the edges ruffle. Long simmering turns them to rubber.
- A bundle of herbsA bouquet garni: parsley stems, thyme and a bay leaf tied with string. Tying it makes the straining step easier.
- A large spoonful of butter mixed with flourThis is beurre manié — roughly 2 tablespoons of soft butter kneaded with 2 tablespoons of flour, whisked into the hot strained broth in small pieces. It gives body without a cooked roux.
- SeasoningNo salt is listed because oyster liquor supplies a good deal; taste after the liaison and correct then. The cayenne, described as an improvement, is worth taking as an instruction.
- YieldAs written, eight to ten servings as a first course.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879), compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by Virginia housewives, appeared when the Chesapeake oyster fishery was near its peak and oysters were cheap enough to be everyday food across much of the tidewater South. The two-stage method here — one batch boiled to exhaustion for its flavour, a fresh batch added at the last second — reflects a period when the cook had oysters to spare. An egg-yolk-and-cream liaison was a common way of finishing a white soup in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The signature "Mrs. E. W." is typical of the book, which credits its recipes to initials or to named local women rather than to a single author.