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Oyster Soup
12 oysters. 1/2 pint (1 cup) oyster liquor. 1/2 pint (1 cup) cream. 2 tablespoonfuls butter 2 tablespoonfuls flour 1/2 pint (I cup) oyster liquor 1/2 pint (I cup) cream Salt, pepper, and grated nutmeg to taste 4 tablespoonfuls milk Toast points
This is an ingredient list rather than a full method — typical of the invalid-cookery sections of casserole books, where the writer assumed the reader already knew how to build a cream sauce. What follows fills in the gaps.
- The hinge: do not boil after the cream goes inMelt the butter, stir in the flour and cook a minute without colouring, then add the strained oyster liquor and whisk smooth. The cream and milk go in last, over low heat, and the soup should never come above a bare simmer — oyster liquor is salty and slightly acidic, and boiling cream on top of it will curdle the soup.
- Oyster liquorThe liquid drained from shucked oysters; a cup takes a good many, though how many depends on their size and how much liquor they hold. Bottled clam juice, or the strained liquid from a container of shucked oysters, is the usable substitute. Strain it through a fine sieve or cloth — grit and bits of shell are the usual fault.
- No oysters in the soupNo oysters in the list -- None appear among the ingredients, so the oyster flavour would arrive through the liquor alone; with no method printed, whether that was intentional cannot be established. If you want the oysters in it, slip them in off the heat for a minute or two at the end; more than that and they tighten and go rubbery.
- MeasuresThe half-pints are glossed as one cup each, so this is an American 8 oz cup; liquor and cream together make two cups, with four tablespoons of milk besides. No method is printed, so where the milk goes in is not stated.
- NutmegGrate it fresh and use very little; pre-ground nutmeg is flat and will taste dusty against the cream. A few strokes over the pot is the whole intention.
- SaltSeason only at the end. Oyster liquor carries a great deal of salt already, and how much varies from batch to batch.
- Yield and servingEnough for two small bowls, or one invalid's tray twice over. Cut the toast into triangles and serve them dry alongside rather than floating, so they do not turn to paste.
Nearly every American household manual of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries carried a section of "invalid" or "sick-room" cookery, and oysters appear in it often: they were relatively cheap, widely available, and generally regarded as among the more easily digested of animal foods, which is why they turn up in dishes prescribed for convalescents. A soup built on the liquor alone, thickened with a butter-and-flour roux and enriched with cream, can be read as an invalid version of the far more common oyster stew — all of the flavour, none of the work of chewing. Toast points, cut in triangles and served dry, were a common sick-tray accompaniment to anything liquid.