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Oysters à la Thorndike
1 pint oysters. 2 tablespoons butter 1/2 teaspoon salt Few grains cayenne Slight grating nutmeg ¼ cup thin cream Yolks 2 eggs Melt butter, add oysters, and Then add seasonings, cream, Clean and drain oysters. cook until oysters are plump. and egg yolks slightly beaten. Cook until sauce is slightly thickened, stirring constantly. Serve on zephyrettes or pieces of toasted bread.
The text as printed here has come through with its two ingredient columns interleaved, so the method reads out of order and the oysters never appear in the list at all. The working sequence is: melt the butter, add the cleaned and drained oysters, cook until plump, then add the seasonings, cream and slightly beaten yolks, and cook until the sauce thickens, stirring constantly.
- The missing oystersThe quantity was lost in the scrambled column. Comparable oyster recipes in Farmer generally start from about a pint of shucked oysters, which would suit the butter, cream and two yolks here; but the figure is a reconstruction, not something this page states.
- "14 cup" thin creamRead this as 1/4 cup. "Thin cream" in Farmer's day was appreciably richer than milk, often put at somewhere around 18-20 percent butterfat, so light cream is the closest current equivalent; half-and-half will be noticeably thinner.
- The hinge: do not let the yolks boilOnce the egg yolks go in, the sauce must stay below a simmer or it will scramble into curds around the oysters. Keep it moving and pull it off the heat the moment it coats the spoon.
- Oyster timingOysters are done when their edges ruffle and they firm slightly, one to two minutes in the hot butter. Anything longer shrinks them and turns them rubbery, and they will also weep liquor that thins the sauce.
- Drain them properlyWet oysters are the usual reason this dish comes out soupy. Drain well and blot; save the liquor for a chowder rather than adding it here.
- ZephyrettesA thin, crisp unsweetened cracker or wafer sold commercially around the turn of the century. Water crackers, plain saltines or small toast points all serve the same purpose, which is a dry base under a loose sauce.
- Chafing dish or stovetopVessel -- The page itself does not specify what to cook this in. A small heavy skillet over low heat works, or set a bowl over barely simmering water once the yolks go in for more control.
- YieldReckoned on a pint of oysters, this would serve about three as a first course, or two as a supper dish.
Fannie Farmer's oyster cookery belongs to a particular moment in American entertaining: the 1890s and 1900s, when the spirit-lamp chafing dish became fashionable equipment for late suppers, college rooms and after-theatre gatherings, cooking being done at the table rather than sent up from a kitchen. Oysters suited it perfectly, since they were cheap, abundant on the Atlantic coast, and needed only a minute of heat. Dishes named for hotels were a standard flourish of the period, and this one may refer to a hotel of that name, though Farmer, as usual, gives no attribution and offers no explanation of the name. The construction itself, butter and cream thickened at the last moment with egg yolks, is a plain restaurant liaison of the era, and the crisp cracker beneath is what keeps the whole thing from being merely a sauce in a bowl.