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Prairie Oyster
A Novelty.
Draw dash soda in glass, add 1 egg, vinegar 1 dram, season with pepper, salt and lemon juice and serve. Serve with glass of seltzer on the side.
This is a soda-fountain version of the prairie oyster, and it turns on swallowing a whole raw egg. That single step is what puts it out of reach today, and the notes below explain the specifics rather than offering a workaround.
- The raw egg is the problemThe yolk is served intact and uncooked, with nothing in the glass that would heat it. Shell eggs can carry Salmonella internally, and neither vinegar nor lemon juice at these volumes kills it. If you want a prairie oyster today, work from a current recipe that specifies pasteurised eggs.
- Acid is not a treatmentA fluid dram of vinegar is about three-quarters of a teaspoon, and the lemon juice is a seasoning quantity. Acidity at that level flavours the drink; it does not pasteurise it.
- A dram, for referenceA fluid dram is one-eighth of a fluid ounce, roughly a teaspoon. Fountain men measured in drams and minims because the trade grew out of the pharmacy.
- "Dash soda" and the seltzer backA dash from the fountain arm was a short squirt of carbonated water, an ounce or less. The recipe also calls for a full glass of seltzer served alongside.
- Nothing here is a cocktailDespite the modern association with brandy or Worcestershire, this version is entirely non-alcoholic, which is why it sits in a soda book. The bite comes from vinegar, pepper and lemon.
The prairie oyster belongs to a small family of nineteenth-century "novelty" drinks built around a whole raw egg, the name often said to come from the way the intact yolk sliding down resembles an oyster going down whole. It circulated as a hangover cure, usually with brandy or Worcestershire sauce, and it also turns up in soda books. American soda fountains of this period were extensions of the drugstore, staffed by dispensers who measured in drams and minims and who kept eggs on hand for egg phosphates, egg lemonades and flips; a raw egg in a glass was, in that context, unremarkable stock in trade rather than a stunt.