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Oyster and Caviare Sandwich
Butter thin slices of brown bread, cover one slice thinly with caviare and on this lay two raw whole oysters; cover with another slice of bread and garnish with slice of lemon.
A two-ingredient assembly whose success rests entirely on the quality and temperature of the oysters. Nothing is cooked, so nothing forgives.
- Brown breadIn sandwich books of this period "brown bread" appears generally to mean a plain wholemeal or graham loaf rather than the steamed Boston brown bread of tin-can shape, though this recipe does not specify. A close-crumbed wholemeal, cut thin, suits it; the butter helps seal the bread against the oyster liquor. Nothing here directs you to remove the crusts.
- Caviare then and nowIf the book dates from around the turn of the twentieth century, "caviare" on an American table was often domestic sturgeon roe, then far cheaper relative to other foods than it is today. That price structure is now inverted, so lumpfish, trout or salmon roe is the sensible substitute; use it sparingly, as the book says thinly, or the salt will bury the oyster.
- Drain the oystersLift each oyster from its liquor and blot it on a cloth before laying it on the caviare. An undrained oyster will grey the roe and soak straight through the buttered bread within a minute or two.
- Oyster sizeTwo whole oysters per sandwich assumes small ones, on the order of the Blue Points and Rockaways sold by the hundred at the time. With a large modern Pacific or Gulf oyster, one, halved crosswise, sits flatter and eats better.
- Sourcing and timingBuy oysters live and shucked to order, keep them below 40F, and assemble at the last moment before serving. Raw shellfish carries a real risk of Vibrio and norovirus; people who are pregnant, immunocompromised, or have liver disease should not eat them at all.
- The lemon is not decorationThe lemon -- The recipe treats it as garnish, but the acid also works against the salt of the roe and the mineral edge of the raw oyster. If you prefer, squeeze it over the oyster before the top slice goes on rather than leaving it on the plate.
- Yield and serviceReckon one sandwich per person as a first course or two or three per person cut into fingers for a cold supper or card table. Serve within a quarter of an hour of making; these do not hold.
Sandwich books were a small publishing genre in the first decade of the twentieth century, when afternoon teas, bridge parties and chafing-dish suppers created demand for cold food that could be made in quantity and eaten standing up. The pairing of oyster and caviare belongs to the same moment: sturgeon roe from the Delaware and Hudson rivers had until recently been landed in quantity and sold cheaply in American cities, and it is often said to have been given away as salted bar food, while shucked oysters were a working-class staple sold by the barrel. What now reads as a luxury sandwich was, in its own decade, closer to two commonplace things put together on brown bread. Both fisheries declined steeply, which is why the recipe now sounds far grander than it was meant to.