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Oyster-and-Celery Salad
Parboil the oysters (heating them to the boilingpoint in their own liquor), drain, and, if large, halve each; marinate with a French dressing (i.e., toss the bits of oyster in oil enough to coat them nicely; then toss them in a little lemon juice, dust with salt and pepper, and set aside to become thoroughly chilled). When ready to serve, drain again and add about one-third as much in bulk of fine-chopped celery and one or two tablespoonfuls of pickled nasturtium seeds or capers; then mix with mayonnaise or a boiled dressing. Serve on a bed of lettuce leaves. Cabbage, sliced as for slaw, may be used in the place of celery. Garnish with small pickles cut in thin slices and spread to resemble a fan.
A late-Victorian composed salad that depends entirely on not overcooking the oysters. Everything else is assembly.
- The hinge: barely cook the oystersBring them up in their own liquor only until the edges ruffle and the liquor is about to break into a simmer, then pull them off the heat and drain at once. Two minutes is usually enough; oysters held at a boil turn tough and shrink to a fraction of their size.
- QuantitiesThe original gives none. A pint of shucked oysters, about 24 medium, with about two-thirds of a cup of finely chopped celery (the recipe's 'one-third as much in bulk'), makes four salad-course servings.
- French dressing, 1900 senseNot a bottled sweet-red dressing but plain oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper, used here as a marinade rather than a sauce. Note the sequence in the text: oil first to coat, acid second.
- Boiled dressingThe period alternative to mayonnaise: eggs or egg yolks, vinegar, mustard, a little flour or cornstarch and milk or cream, cooked over water until it thickens. It is generally tarter and lighter than mayonnaise.
- Pickled nasturtium seedsThe green seed pods of garden nasturtium, brined and pickled, and long used as a homegrown stand-in for capers. Capers, as the recipe allows, substitute for them directly; drain and roughly chop them if large.
- Keep it coldThe salad is dressed and chilled well before serving, which means cooked shellfish sitting in a dressing. Refrigerate at every stage, dress no more than an hour or two ahead, and eat the same day.
- Drain twice, and mean itThe second draining, after chilling, matters. Oysters continue to weep, and any liquor left behind will thin mayonnaise or boiled dressing into a puddle on the lettuce.
- The cabbage variationSliced cabbage in place of celery makes a sturdier, cheaper salad.
Oyster salads belong to a period when oysters were cheap, widely eaten food rather than a luxury, sold by the quart from barrels and carried well inland by rail. Celery was a common partner for oysters in American cookery of the 1880s and 1890s: it was a prestige winter vegetable, sometimes served upright in tall cut-glass celery vases on the table, and its crunch was a favoured foil for anything soft and briny. The nasturtium seeds point back to English kitchen-garden practice, where pickled pods stood in for imported capers; the substitution appears in English household books well before this one. The fan of sliced pickle is a turn-of-the-century garnish convention, of a piece with the radish roses and piped aspic of the same books.