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Canned Cove Oyster Salad
May be made like the foregoing, the liquor being excluded, and also with boiled potatoes cut in dice in any other salad dressing. Clams can be used as above in time of need. Use some of the clam liquor to thin the salad dressing with, instead of water.
A variation note rather than a standalone method: it assumes you have just read the preceding oyster salad and are now working from a can. The useful information is in what it tells you to leave out and what to substitute.
- "The foregoing"This entry is a variation on the oyster salad printed immediately before it, which is not reproduced here; read that recipe first for the method and dressing. Canned oysters arrive already cooked, so whatever cooking the earlier recipe called for can be skipped.
- Cove oysters"cove oysters" was a trade name for small oysters sold canned in their own liquor, a line associated with the Baltimore packers. Any small canned oyster works; drain them well and blot on a towel. The recipe simply directs that the liquor be excluded.
- Clam liquor is the exceptionCanned clam liquor is worth keeping and is meant to thin the dressing in place of water. It is salty, so hold back salt in the dressing until you have added it and tasted.
- Which salad dressing"any other salad dressing" would most likely mean mayonnaise or a cooked boiled dressing thickened with egg and flour and sharpened with vinegar. A plain mayonnaise loosened with a spoonful of the clam liquor is the closest modern equivalent.
- PotatoesBoil waxy potatoes whole in their skins, peel while warm, and cut into roughly half-inch dice. Dressing a warm potato lets it absorb the seasoning; fold the oysters in only once everything has cooled, or they break up.
- ProportionsNone are given. One 8 oz can of oysters to about a pound of cooked potatoes and half a cup of dressing makes four moderate servings; more potato stretches it further. The "in time of need" clause refers to using clams in place of oysters.
- ServingChill an hour before serving so the dressing sets around the potato, and eat the same day. Canned shellfish in a dressed salad does not keep well overnight.
Canned oysters were one of the earliest American convenience foods. Baltimore packing houses shipped tinned Chesapeake oysters inland, and "cove oysters" became a pantry staple in towns hundreds of miles from salt water. For a pastry cook or hotel kitchen, a tin of them meant an oyster salad could go on the menu in July, out of season and far from the coast. The tone of this entry may owe more to the trade manual than the home cookbook: it seems to assume the reader already knows the salad and only needs to be told what changes when the oysters come from a can, that potato will stretch the dish, and that clams will do when oysters are dear or unavailable.