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Oyster Forcemeat (for Roast or Boiled Turkey)
INGREDIENTS for sufficient for a turkey. pint of bread-crumbs, 1 oz. of chopped suet or some butter, 1 faggot of savoury herbs, 1/4 saltspoonful of grated nutmeg, salt and pepper to taste, 2 eggs, 18 oysters. AVERAGE COST, 1s. 10d.
OYSTER KETCHUP.
Grate the bread very fine, and be careful that no large lumps remain; put it into a basin with the suet, which must be very finely minced, or when butter is used, that must be cut up into small pieces. Add the herbs, also chopped as small as possible, and seasoning; mix all these well together, until the ingredients are thoroughly mingled. Open and beard the oysters, chop them, but not too small, and add them to the other ingredients. Beat up the eggs, and, with the hand, work all together, until it is smoothly mixed. The THE EDIBLE OYSTER. turkey should not be stuffed too full; if there should be too much forcemeat, roll it into balls, fry them, and use them as a garnish.
SEASONABLE from September to April.
A wet, oyster-heavy bread stuffing of the sort Victorian cooks put inside a roast or boiled turkey. The measurements are a little jumbled in the original, so read the quantities below before you start.
- The quantities, sorted outThe list is for one turkey: about 1 pint (roughly 2 cups, loosely packed) of fine fresh bread-crumbs, 1 oz finely minced suet or an equivalent amount of butter cut small, 1 faggot of savoury herbs, 1/4 saltspoonful of grated nutmeg, salt and pepper, 2 eggs and 18 oysters. The butter line is damaged: it should read a quantity of melted butter made with milk, which in Beeton means a thin milk-based butter sauce used to moisten the crumbs. Add it a spoonful at a time until the mixture just holds together.
- A faggot of savoury herbsA small tied bundle, usually parsley and thyme, often with a bay leaf; the exact mix varies. Here the herbs are chopped into the mixture rather than removed, so discard the bay leaf if you use one and reckon on about 2 tablespoons chopped parsley and 1 teaspoon thyme leaves.
- SaltspoonfulA saltspoon is about 1/4 teaspoon, so a quarter saltspoonful of nutmeg is a scant pinch. Grate it fresh; pre-ground nutmeg at that dose will barely register.
- SuetBeef suet is sold shredded in some supermarkets and by butchers. Butter, which the recipe offers as an alternative, is the easier substitution: 1 oz, cold and cut into small dice so it melts through the crumbs during roasting.
- Bearding the oystersThe beard is the dark frill of gill tissue at the edge. Cut it away with scissors and keep the liquor, which can replace part of the milk sauce. Chop the oysters coarsely, as instructed, or they disappear into the crumbs.
- Stuffing safelyAny stuffing packed inside a bird needs to reach 165F/74C at its centre, which usually means the breast overcooks. Cooking it in a separate dish, covered, at 350F for 30-40 minutes gives better results and is the standard modern practice.
- The forcemeat ballsThe instruction to roll surplus forcemeat into balls and fry them is the most useful line in the recipe. Roll walnut-sized balls, chill them 20 minutes so they hold, and shallow-fry in butter until browned all over and hot through.
- Yield and seasonThe original says only that it is enough for a turkey, with any surplus rolled into balls. "Seasonable from September to April" corresponds to the traditional rule of eating oysters only in months with an R, usually explained as avoiding the spawning season; farmed oysters are now sold year-round.
Oyster stuffing belongs to a period when oysters were cheap protein rather than a luxury. Nineteenth-century London and the eastern American seaboard both had enormous natural beds, and oysters went into pies, sausages, ketchup and forcemeats as a savoury bulking agent much as mushrooms might be used today. The average cost given here, 1s. 10d., was real money for a household but modest against the price of the turkey it was to fill. Beeton's book runs the entry alongside oyster ketchup and a general note on the edible oyster, which is why fragments of those neighbouring headings have crept into this page. Over-dredging collapsed the great European and American beds in the later nineteenth century, and the oyster's move from everyday food to delicacy is the main reason a stuffing like this now reads as extravagant.