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Oyster Canapes
Finely chop a dozen oysters, put them in a saucepan with a teaspoonful of cracker dust or finely grated breadcrumb, a lump of butter about the size of a walnut, and one-half teacupful of thick cream, and season with salt and pepper. Stir the mixture over the fire and let it simmer for a few minutes. Cut some slices of bread about one-fourth inch in thickness, butter them, and put them on a hot dish. Pour the mixture over the bread and butter and serve it while hot.
A simple hot oyster mixture spooned over buttered bread, from a period when a dozen oysters cost less than the butter. A few of the measures need translating.
- Half a teacupful of creamPeriod teacups are reckoned anywhere from about 4 to 8 fluid ounces, so this is somewhere between a scant 1/4 cup and 1/2 cup; a third of a cup is a fair working figure. "Thick cream" here most likely means a high-fat pouring cream rather than clotted or soured cream.
- Butter the size of a walnutAbout one tablespoon. The walnut was a common kitchen measure of the period.
- Cracker dustFinely crushed plain soda or water crackers, used as a thickener. Fine dry breadcrumbs, which the recipe already offers as an alternative, do the same job.
- Don't overcook the oystersChopped oysters firm up in well under two minutes once the cream is hot. "Simmer for a few minutes" is the outer limit; go past it and the texture turns rubbery and the liquor they throw off thins the sauce.
- Drain and reserve the liquorChopping releases a good deal of liquid. Drain the oysters before chopping, and if the finished mixture is too thick, loosen it with a spoonful of the reserved liquor rather than more cream.
- The breadQuarter-inch untoasted bread will go soggy the moment the sauce hits it. Toast the slices lightly on both sides before buttering; canape at this date generally meant a shaped piece of bread serving as a base, not a cold cocktail bite.
- SeasoningOysters and cracker dust are both salty. Season at the end; a few grains of cayenne or a scrape of nutmeg would not be out of place.
- YieldA dozen oysters makes enough for four small canapes as a first course, or two as a savoury supper dish. Serve immediately; it will not hold.
Oscar Tschirky was never the Waldorf's chef but its maitre d'hotel, and the 1896 book under his name gathers the hotel's working repertoire alongside dishes of his own arrangement. Oyster preparations run through it in bulk because New York in the 1890s ate oysters at a rate difficult to imagine now: the beds of the lower Hudson and Long Island Sound supplied cellars, stands and hotel kitchens across the city, and the oyster was cheap food before overharvesting and pollution closed most of the local grounds in the early twentieth century. A canape at this date commonly meant a slice of bread, fried or toasted, serving as an edible plate for something rich and hot, though cold, decorated canapes were already in circulation as well. The dish is essentially a creamed oyster mince, related to the oyster pan roast that the Grand Central Oyster Bar still serves, and it uses cracker dust as its binder, crushed cracker being one common thickener in American kitchens of the period alongside flour and cornstarch.