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Oyster Stew, Boston Style (Have twenty-four large box)
Have twenty-four large box oysters placed in a stew pan with their own liquor, add an extra pint fresh oyster juice and a pint of water, four branches well-cleaned celery, a teaspoon salt and two light saltspoons cayenne, set pan on the fire and gently boil for five minutes. Remove celery, skim scum off surface and add a quart hot milk, gill cream and ounce good butter, mix well, pour into a hot soup tureen and serve with six freshly prepared toasts separately.
A plain, liquor-forward stew that depends on good oysters and restraint at the stove. The one thing to change is the timing.
- Do not boil the oysters five minutesOysters firm up in about a minute in hot liquid and turn rubbery well before five. Simmer the liquor, water and celery together for the five minutes to build flavour, then drop the oysters in at the end and heat only until their edges ruffle.
- "Box oysters"Generally understood to mean oysters sold shucked by the box or container rather than in the shell; period grading terms were not consistent. Twenty-four large shucked oysters is roughly a quart with liquor; ask your fishmonger for select or standard size.
- Extra oyster juiceA pint of additional fresh oyster liquor is not something a supermarket sells. Buy an extra container of shucked oysters for the liquor, or substitute a light fish stock or bottled clam juice, which is saltier and means holding back on the added salt.
- A gillHalf a cup. Use heavy cream; the fat is what keeps the milk from tasting thin against the brine.
- SaltspoonsA saltspoon is usually reckoned at about a quarter teaspoon, though usage ranged from an eighth to a quarter, so two light ones is somewhere near a scant half teaspoon of cayenne. That is assertive in a stew this size; start with half and adjust.
- Keep the milk below a simmerA quart of hot milk poured into salty oyster liquor will curdle if it boils. Scald it separately and combine off the heat, or over the lowest flame.
- SkimmingThe grey scum that rises is coagulated oyster protein and grit. Take it off before the dairy goes in, or it will disperse and cloud the stew.
- Yield and serviceSix servings, matching the six toasts. Common oyster bars serve it with oyster crackers or plain toast points, dry so they can be broken into the bowl.
Oyster stew was for much of the nineteenth century among the cheapest hot suppers to be had in the American port cities, and something like it was eaten in Boston, Baltimore, New York and Philadelphia, though how far each city held to a distinct version is not clear. The Boston style, as recorded here, is the austere one: no onion, no flour, no thickening at all, the celery steeped for perfume and then pulled out, and the body coming from oyster liquor cut with milk, cream and a little butter. That restraint reflects an era when oysters were abundant enough on the Atlantic seaboard to carry a dish alone, before overharvesting and pollution closed most of the great beds. The dish survived the collapse of the fishery as an occasion food, and in many American households it is still the traditional Christmas Eve supper, a custom generally traced to Irish Catholic immigrants adapting a fast-day fish meal to what the local water provided.