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Stewed Oysters
Mrs. Andrews.
In all cases, unless shell oysters, wash and drain; mix half a cup of butter and a tablespoon of corn starch; put with the oysters in a porcelain kettle; stir until they boil; add two cups of cream or milk; salt to taste; do not use the liquor of the oysters in either stewing or escaloping.
A very plain oyster stew of the enriched-milk school: butter and starch first, oysters next, dairy last. Two details in the original need attention before it works on a modern stove.
- Do not let it boil with the oysters inThe instruction to "stir until they boil" is the one line to ignore. Shucked oysters are done in two to three minutes, as soon as the edges ruffle; held at a boil they tighten into rubber and weep liquid into the stew. Heat the butter and starch until bubbling, then add the oysters and pull the pan the moment they plump.
- Porcelain kettleAn enamelled cast-iron or enamel-on-steel saucepan. The point was a non-reactive surface, since bare iron and unlined copper discolour cream and give oysters a metallic edge. Any heavy stainless or enamelled pan does the job.
- The butter and corn starchHalf a cup of butter to a tablespoon of starch is a very loose roux, more enrichment than thickener. Rub the starch into the softened butter to a smooth paste before it meets any liquid, or you will be picking out lumps.
- Cream or milk, and the temperatureWarm the dairy before it goes in. Two cups of cold milk poured onto hot butter and oysters drops the pan below serving temperature and tempts the cook to boil it back up, which is exactly what ruins the oysters.
- Discarding the liquorMrs. Andrews is firm about this, though other nineteenth-century writers kept the liquor: oyster liquor is briny, cloudy, and can curdle milk. Many modern recipes strain the liquor through a cloth and use it for depth. Follow the original if you want the pale, sweet, dairy-forward version it is aiming at.
- "Unless shell oysters"The washing applies to oysters bought already shucked, in tubs, which is presumably why the recipe exempts oysters still in the shell. Freshly shucked oysters today need no washing beyond removing shell fragments.
- SaltSalt at the very end. Without the liquor the stew starts almost sweet, but oysters release their own salt as they heat and the amount varies with where they were grown.
- Quantity and yieldThe original never says how many oysters. Two cups of dairy and half a cup of butter suit roughly a quart of shucked oysters, which serves four as a first course.
Oyster stew of this kind was, in coastal cities and the towns the railways served, closer to everyday food than to a luxury. Oysters were dredged in enormous volumes from Chesapeake Bay and the Long Island and New England beds, shipped inland packed in ice and barrels once the railways reached far enough, and sold by the quart from street stalls and cellar saloons. That abundance is why a Midwestern community cookbook of the sort this appears to be can carry oyster recipes with no sense of occasion, and why they are given in the offhand manner of a contributor writing down what she does rather than a formal receipt. The refusal to use the liquor marks the dish as belonging to the milk-stew tradition, in which the oyster is treated as a delicate white meat to be cushioned in cream, as opposed to the saltier pan-roast style built on the oyster's own briny juice. Recipes signed with a contributor's name, as this one is, were the whole method of these subscription cookbooks: a church or charity committee collected dishes from the women of the town and sold the printed result to raise funds.