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Prairie Oyster
I TEASPOON WORCES- TERSHIRE I TEASPOON KETCHUP OR CATSUP 2 DASHES VINEGAR 2 DASHES LEMON JUICE A PINCH OF SALT A DROP OF TABASCO A PINCH OF CAYENNE Serve in small glass or cup, such as the sawed-off shaving mug that Tom and Jerry comes in at New Year's.
Practically all people except Americans eat their softboiled eggs direct from the shell with a horn spoon, using one of those old fashioned egg cups that are different sizes top and bottom, though nobody has yet explained why. Or you can use a napkin ring to hold your egg, which certainly tastes better from a horn spoon and straight from the shell that seals in all its flavor during the cooking. It's delicious. But you have to be dextrous.
A prairie oyster is a raw egg swallowed from a glass with seasonings, and that is precisely the problem: nothing in it is ever heated.
- Why this one failsThe egg is eaten raw and whole, with no cooking, no acid soak long enough to matter, and no pasteurisation. Raw shell eggs can carry Salmonella on the shell and, less often, inside the egg itself, and a drink built on one intact raw yolk gives the pathogen an unimpeded route. Use a pasteurised egg, or a current recipe, if you want something in this family.
- The seasonings do nothingThe vinegar, lemon juice and Tabasco are present in drops and dashes. At that dilution they are flavouring, not a treatment; they will not reduce bacterial load in the yolk.
- A dashThe dash was not a standardised measure in period bar writing; it is commonly reckoned at roughly an eighth of a teaspoon, or a few drops from a bitters bottle. On that reckoning two dashes each of vinegar and lemon juice comes to something like a quarter teaspoon.
- Ketchup or catsupThe two spellings meant the same tomato condiment by this date, and the sweetened, thickened style familiar today was already standard, so nothing exotic is intended.
- The glassA Tom and Jerry mug is a small ceramic cup, sold in sets with a matching bowl for the hot egg-and-spirit punch (rum, brandy, or both) drunk at New Year. The instruction is simply asking for a small heavy cup rather than a stemmed glass.
- The horn spoonHorn was preferred for eggs because, unlike silver, it does not react with sulphur compounds and take on a grey tarnish and metallic taste. Modern stainless steel or a plastic spoon behaves the same way.