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April 1
Menu: Fried Oysters, Tartare Sauce; Roast Guinea Hens; Rice Croquettes en Surprise; Lettuce, Asparagus and Red Pepper; Salad; Cheese Wafers; Pineapple Mousse; Coffee Fried Oysters-Wash, drain, and dry oysters between 2 towels; let stand in a marinade 10 or more minutes, then drain again. Roll in crackercrumbs, seasoned with salt, pepper, and paprika. For 2 cups oysters, beat 2 eggs with 2 tablespoons cold water until well mixed; dip oysters, crumbed, into egg, and roll again in crumbs. Fry 1 minute in hot Crisco. Use frying-basket and cook 6 oysters at a time. Drain and serve at once with tartare sauce. The marinade is made as follows: Take 1 part melted Crisco and 3 of vinegar, with salt and pepper to taste. Stir oysters into this and let stand 10 minutes, then drain off any of the marinade that has not been absorbed.
A straightforward deep-fried oyster from Procter & Gamble's promotional cookbook, with an acid marinade standing in for the more usual milk soak. A few details need translating.
- Fat temperatureThe book says only "hot Crisco" and gives no figure; standard modern practice for deep-fried oysters is around 375F. Cooler than that and the crumb coating absorbs fat before the oyster sets; hotter and the crumbs darken while the interior is still cold. Use enough shortening for the oysters to float free, at least 2 inches in a deep pan.
- Crisco itselfStill sold, though reformulated: the original was hydrogenated cottonseed oil, while today's is a soybean and palm blend with the trans fats largely removed. Any neutral frying fat will serve here.
- Six at a timeNot fussiness. Oysters release a great deal of water, and a crowded basket drops the fat temperature sharply and produces soggy coating. Let the fat recover its heat between batches.
- One minute is rightResist the urge to extend it. Oysters are cooked the moment their edges ruffle; two or three minutes turns them to rubber inside a perfectly browned shell. The coating browning is the timer.
- The marinadeOne part melted shortening to three parts vinegar will not emulsify; it separates the moment it hits the cold oysters, so stir as you go. The recipe's own heading allows "10 or more minutes," though a long soak in straight vinegar will begin to firm the flesh.
- Cracker crumbsPeriod cracker crumbs meant plain soda or water crackers, crushed fine, which are drier and coarser than modern breadcrumbs. Saltines crushed to a coarse sand are the closest match; panko gives a lighter but less authentic crust.
- Drying mattersThe two towels are the hinge of the recipe. A wet oyster sheds its crumbs in the fat and leaves you with a bare oyster and a pan of burnt debris.
- YieldTwo cups of shucked oysters is roughly a pint, about 18 to 24 medium oysters -- three or four servings as a course, more as an appetizer. Serve immediately; fried oysters do not hold.
The Story of Crisco (1913), written by Marion Harris Neil for Procter & Gamble, was advertising in the shape of a cookbook: 615 recipes demonstrating that the company's new hydrogenated cottonseed shortening, introduced in 1911, could replace both butter and lard in every department of cooking. The "Calendar of Dinners" -- a companion, retitled issue of the Procter & Gamble book rather than a plain section of the 1913 volume -- assigned a full menu to each day of the year, which may be why this one carries the date April 2. Fried oysters belong to a moment when oysters were cheap urban food rather than a luxury -- East Coast and Gulf beds were still being harvested at enormous volume, and shucked oysters travelled inland by rail in ice-packed cans. Shortening was pitched as cleaner-tasting and higher-smoking than lard, and deep-fat cookery was the showcase where that claim was easiest to make.