Broiled Oysters
Wash the oysters and dry them with a soft towel. Dip them in melted butter and lay them on a broiler which has been well greased with salt pork or butter. Broil on both sides for a few minutes; lay on buttered toast and season with salt, pepper and butter.
Oysters cooked on both sides on a buttered gridiron have the flavor of broiled oysters, and are more easily prepared.
A four-line recipe that depends almost entirely on heat and timing. The instructions assume a hinged wire broiler held over live coals, which is worth translating before anything else.
- The broiler meantA "broiler" or "gridiron" here is a hinged wire basket or flat grid set over coals, turned by hand. The closest modern equivalents are a very hot cast-iron grill pan or a preheated oven broiler element with the oysters on a rack about three inches below.
- Timing is the hinge"A few minutes" is ambiguous, and may well mean a few minutes in total rather than per side. Shucked oysters are done when the edges ruffle and they plump, roughly 1 to 2 minutes a side over high heat; past that they tighten and turn rubbery, and the liquor cooks out.
- Dry them properlyThe towel is not fussiness. Surface moisture steams instead of browning, and wet oysters slide through the grid. Drain, blot, then dip in butter.
- Greasing with salt porkRubbing hot bars with a scrap of salt pork is one of the two options the recipe gives, and turns up often enough in period cookery for lean, delicate foods. Butter works, but it burns; a neutral high-heat oil or a pork scrap keeps the grid slick longer.
- Which oystersUse shucked oysters, drained, of a size that will not fall through a rack. The recipe does not specify a grade or a quantity; a pint of shucked oysters, the usual market unit, will serve three to four on toast.
- Quantities left openNo amounts are given for butter, salt or pepper. Figure 3 to 4 tablespoons melted butter per pint of oysters for dipping, and season only after cooking, as the recipe directs, since salt draws out liquor.
- The toastButtered toast under broiled oysters is there to absorb the juices, so cut it thick and toast it dry rather than soft. Have it ready before the oysters go on; they will not wait.
Broiled oysters belong to a period when oysters were cheap, abundant and eaten in every form American kitchens could devise: raw, stewed, scalloped, fried, panned, roasted in the shell and broiled on a gridiron. The closing note, that oysters cooked on a buttered gridiron taste like broiled oysters and are easier to manage, reads as a small piece of practical honesty about coal-fired cooking, though exactly what contrast is intended is not clear from the page. The pairing with buttered toast is older still, a standing British and American habit of setting anything with liquor or gravy on bread that would soak it up.