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Oyster Stuffing
15 oysters 1/2 tablespoon chopped parsley 1/2 teaspoon sweet marjoram 2 cups broken bread 2 tablespoons melted butter Salt and pepper Wash the oysters; drain them; mix thoroughly with the other ingredients and use.
A spare set of proportions rather than a method — Mrs. Fryer assumes you know what to do with a bowl of seasoned bread and a bird. A few notes on scale and safety fill the gaps.
- Yield and scaleTwo cups of bread makes roughly enough for a 3-4 lb chicken or a pair of small game birds. For a 12-14 lb turkey you want about four times this, or 8 cups of bread and 5 dozen oysters.
- "Broken bread"Most likely day-old bread torn into rough pieces rather than fine fresh crumbs or bagged cubes, though the recipe does not specify. Staler bread holds up better once the oyster liquor hits it; very fresh bread tends toward paste.
- The oystersFifteen oysters means fifteen shucked oysters, standard or select size, roughly 1 to 1 1/4 cups. Draining is the instruction that matters: undrained, the liquor waterlogs the bread. You may reserve the liquor and add it back a spoonful at a time if the mixture seems dry.
- MarjoramHalf a teaspoon most likely means dried sweet marjoram. If using fresh, use about 1 1/2 teaspoons chopped.
- Don't chop the oystersThe recipe specifies chopping only for the parsley, so the oysters presumably go in whole and raw, cooking through inside the bird. Pre-cooking them first risks a tough result.
- Temperature, if you stuff the birdRaw oysters in a packed cavity are the reason modern practice insists on a thermometer: the center of the stuffing must reach 165F, not just the thigh meat. Pack the cavity loosely and check the stuffing itself.
- Baked separatelySafer and more reliable. Turn it into a buttered dish, moisten with a little stock or the reserved oyster liquor, and bake in a moderate oven (about 350F) for 30-35 minutes, until set and lightly browned on top and hot through to the centre. The original gives no temperature or timing.
- Seasoning"Salt and pepper" needs a firmer hand than you might expect — start with 3/4 teaspoon salt and a generous grinding of pepper for this quantity, remembering that oysters bring their own salinity.
Oyster stuffing belongs to a long American habit of treating oysters as an everyday bulking ingredient rather than a luxury. Through the nineteenth century Eastern seaboard beds were highly productive and oysters were shipped inland by rail and barrel, so they turned up in soups, fritters, pies and -- most durably -- in the Thanksgiving and Christmas bird. The bare proportions here, with no note explaining what oysters are or where to get them, suggest how ordinary they still were to the cook this was written for. The pairing survives most visibly along the Chesapeake and in New England, where oyster dressing remains a common accompaniment to a holiday turkey, though the oysters are now likely to be the expensive part of the dish rather than the padding.