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Mussel Soup
Clean thoroughly one-half gallon of mussels, and toss them in a saucepan over a fire until the shells open. Take them out, remove the weeds, etc., put them into a saucepan with one ounce each of butter and flour, and add a little chopped parsley and sweet herbs; put the pan on the fire, pour in three pints of rich gravy, boil up, remove the pan to the side of the fire, and let the contents simmer until the liquor is reduced to half its original quantity. Pour it out into a dish garnished with pieces of fried bread. Serve very hot.
A short recipe written for a professional brigade with stockpots already going. Two things need translating: what "rich gravy" meant in 1896, and when the mussels go back in.
- Do not reduce the musselsThe mussels are cooked the moment their shells open, in two to four minutes. If they sit in the pan through a reduction that halves three pints of liquid they will shrink to rubber. Build and reduce the sauce first, then return the mussels for a minute at the end to heat through.
- "Rich gravy"Not pan gravy. In this period it means a strong brown stock, usually veal or beef, already reduced and full-bodied. A good unsalted brown stock or a light demi-glace thinned with the mussel liquor is the closest modern stand-in.
- Half a gallon of musselsMeasured in the shell, that is roughly 2 1/2 to 3 lb, enough for about four servings as a first course. Three pints of stock reduced to a pint and a half makes a thick, saucy soup rather than a broth.
- "Remove the weeds"The byssal threads, the beard. Pull it out toward the hinge. Scrub the shells and discard any that stay shut after steaming or feel unusually heavy with sand.
- Save and strain the liquorOscar says nothing about the liquid the mussels release, but it is the best flavour in the dish. Strain it through a cloth to catch grit and add it to the gravy; adjust salt only after, since mussel liquor is already saline.
- The butter and flourOne ounce each is about 2 tablespoons butter and 1/4 cup flour, which is a small roux for three pints. Cook it a minute or two before the liquid goes in, or the soup tastes of raw flour.
- "Side of the fire"A range term: the cooler edge of a coal top, meaning a bare simmer with the surface barely moving. Lowest burner setting, uncovered, so the reduction actually happens.
- Sweet herbsThyme, marjoram, a bay leaf, sometimes savory. Use them as a small bundle you can lift out; the chopped parsley is better added at the end for colour.
- Fried breadCrustless bread cut in triangles or fingers and fried in butter or clarified butter until crisp, set around the dish just before serving so it does not soften.
Oscar Tschirky was not a cook by trade but the Waldorf's ma circumflex... maître d'hôtel, and the 1896 book collects the kitchen's working repertoire alongside a great deal of European hotel cookery. This is a French-style soupe aux moules in all but name, thickened with roux and finished on brown stock rather than the white wine and cream that later became the default. Mussels were widely available on both American coasts in the nineteenth century but carried little prestige next to oysters and clams, which may be why they tend to appear in the stock-and-roux dishes of a hotel kitchen rather than on the raw bar. Fried bread as a garnish is often described as a descendant of the sops once served under liquid dishes, though here it functions as texture rather than bulk.