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Spindled Oysters
salt, pepper 6 squares buttered toast Drain oysters from their liquor and dry between towels. Cut the bacon in pieces half the size of the oysters. Arrange the oysters and bacon in alternate layers on wooden skewers, being careful to pierce the hard muscle. Place in a hot pan and bake in a hot oven until bacon is done. Ten minutes should suffice.
Serve one skewerful on each slice of buttered toast. Many persons like the liquor of the oysters heated, strained, and poured over the toast just before serving.
A skewered oyster-and-bacon savoury of the sort that ran through American cookbooks around 1900. The whole thing hinges on the bacon and the oysters finishing at the same moment, which modern bacon makes easier than it once was.
- Hot oven"A hot oven" in this period is usually taken to mean somewhere around 400-450F. Preheat the pan in it as instructed so the bacon starts rendering the moment the skewers go down.
- QuantitiesThe ingredient line here is incomplete, giving only salt, pepper and six squares of toast. For six skewers allow roughly three dozen shucked oysters and 6-8 oz of thin-sliced bacon; adjust so each skewer takes five or six oysters.
- Pierce the hard muscleThe "hard muscle" is the adductor, the pale firm plug that held the oyster to its shell. Threading through it is what keeps the oyster from tearing loose and sliding off as it shrinks.
- Bacon thicknessModern supermarket bacon is often thicker than the streaky bacon assumed here, and thick rashers will still be flabby when the oysters are done. Use the thinnest slices available, or the ten minutes will not be enough.
- Dry the oystersDrying between towels is not fussiness. Wet oysters steam rather than roast, and the bacon will not crisp against them.
- Wooden skewersSoak them 20-30 minutes first, or the exposed ends char and snap when you lift them. Metal skewers work but conduct heat and can overcook the oysters from within.
- Do not overshootTen minutes is close to the limit. The oysters are done when they plump and the frilled edges curl; past that they tighten and go rubbery, and no amount of crisp bacon rescues them.
- The liquor sauceStrain the reserved liquor through a fine sieve to catch shell grit, heat it just to a simmer, and spoon it over the toast at the last moment. Poured on early the toast collapses.
- YieldSix skewers on six squares of toast, so six as a first course or savoury, three as a light supper.
Oysters wrapped or skewered with bacon and cooked hot and fast were everywhere in Anglo-American cookery of the late nineteenth century, the best-known relative being "angels on horseback," served as a savoury at the close of a British dinner. The name here is often said to refer to the spindle-like skewer rather than any regional style, though that is a reasonable reading rather than a settled one. Oysters were still cheap and abundant on both American coasts when this book was compiled, which is why they turn up in cookbooks as an everyday supper dish rather than a luxury; the pairing with bacon works because the smoked fat supplies exactly what a lean oyster lacks. Lowney's Cook Book was published by the Walter M. Lowney Company, a Boston chocolate manufacturer, and like most such promotional volumes it printed a full general cookbook around its chocolate and cocoa recipes, which is why a plain fish-course savoury sits in a book remembered for candy.