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Oysters a La Creme
Mrs. J. B. Lyon.
One quart of oysters, one pint of cream; put the oysters in a double kettle, cook until the milk juice begins to flow out; drain the oysters in a colander; put the cream on the same way; when it comes to a boil, thicken with flour wet with milk as thick as corn starch ready to mould; then put in the oysters and cook five minutes. Serve hot on toast.
A plain cream stew from an era when oysters were cheap enough to buy by the quart. The recipe assumes a great deal of common knowledge, including how much flour to use and whether to season at all.
- Double kettleThis is a double boiler — a pan set over simmering water, not direct heat. It keeps the cream from catching and the oysters from seizing, and it is worth using rather than a heavy saucepan over a low flame.
- A quart of oystersShucked oysters sold by liquid measure, roughly 24 to 36 depending on size, and about two standard 16 oz tubs today. Buy them refrigerated in their liquor rather than shucking your own for this.
- "Until the milk juice begins to flow out"The point is the moment the oysters release their liquor and the edges just begin to ruffle — a minute or two, no more. The liquor you drain off is the most flavourful thing in the pot; reduce it and add it back to the cream rather than pouring it away.
- Five minutes is too longFive minutes is probably too long -- the oysters have already been cooked once, and a further five minutes in the sauce risks toughening them. Return them to the thickened cream, warm them through for a minute, and take the pan off the heat.
- The flour is unmeasuredNo quantity is given; the instruction is a texture cue, a slurry "as thick as corn starch ready to mould," meaning a smooth pourable paste. For a pint of cream, about two tablespoons of flour slaked in a quarter cup of cold milk gives a sauce that coats a spoon.
- SeasoningNone is specified, as in many recipes of this kind. Salt, white pepper and a little cayenne or mace are traditional additions, and the oyster liquor is already salty, so season at the end.
- YieldServes four to six over toast. Use a firm white bread, toasted dry and hard, or the cream soaks it to paste before it reaches the table.
Oysters were widely eaten in nineteenth-century North America, dredged in large volume from the Chesapeake and shipped inland packed in ice by rail, which is why a Toronto community cookbook of the 1870s could assume a quart of them in the pantry. Dishes like this one — creamed, scalloped, panned, or in a stew — filled the space between the oyster as an everyday food and the oyster as a supper-party luxury, and subscription cookbooks of the period often carry several versions contributed by different women. The Home Cook Book was compiled from recipes contributed by "ladies of Toronto and other cities and towns" and sold in aid of the Hospital for Sick Children; its recipes are credited by name, as this one is to Mrs. J. B. Lyon, which is why the same book can offer several near-identical oyster preparations without apology. Overharvesting and pollution in the following decades reduced the wild beds, which is part of why a quart of oysters reads as extravagant now and read as ordinary then.