Oyster Broth
Chop the oysters and cook in the oyster liquor for a few minutes. Then add scalded milk and bring to the boiling point. Strain, and season with salt or celery salt if desired.
A soda-fountain style hot drink rather than a soup, and the original assumes you know the proportions. Everything here hinges on heat control: the milk should never take a hard boil, and the oysters should barely cook.
- Proportions, since none are givenA workable ratio is one cup of shucked oysters with their liquor to two cups of milk, which yields two generous mugs. The original leaves this entirely to the cook, so treat any figure as a starting point rather than a reconstruction.
- Oyster liquorThis is the natural brine in the container of shucked oysters, not a spirit. Pour it off and reserve it; if it looks gritty, strain it through a fine sieve or a coffee filter before heating.
- "A few minutes" is too longChopped oysters firm up in well under two minutes in barely simmering liquor. Cook them only until the edges ruffle and they turn opaque, then move on, or the strained broth loses the sweetness that is the whole point.
- Scalded milkHeat the milk to about 180F, when it steams and a ring of small bubbles forms at the edge. Scalding was generally understood to destroy enzymes and check bacteria in raw milk; with pasteurised milk it mainly serves to get the milk hot before it is combined with the salty liquor.
- "Bring to the boiling point"Read this as just short of a full rolling boil. Salted oyster liquor and hot milk may separate if held at a boil, leaving the broth grainy.
- Straining and what to do with the solidsThe recipe wants a clear drinkable broth, so the chopped oysters are discarded or, better, saved for a chowder or a savoury toast. Strain through fine mesh, or through mesh lined with damp cheesecloth if you want it perfectly clean.
- SeasoningOyster liquor is already saline, so season at the very end and taste first. The original offers celery salt as an alternative to plain salt; a few grains of white pepper or a dash of paprika would not be out of place.
- ServingServe hot in a cup or mug, not a bowl.
On Uncle Sam's Water Wagon belongs to the flood of drink books published as national Prohibition approached, when soda fountains and household hosts alike needed things to pour that were not liquor. Hot oyster broth sits oddly beside sweet drinks, but fountain practice of the era drew no firm line between a sweet drink and a savoury one: counters that served phosphates and egg creams could also dispense hot bouillon, clam juice and beef tea. Oysters were still comparatively cheap and were commonly sold shucked by the pint, and their liquor was treated as an ingredient in its own right rather than something to pour away. Drinks of this kind were also given to invalids and convalescents, which may help explain the plainness othing to chew, strained and lightly salted.