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Oyster Loaf Sandwich
Cut Vienna rolls into halves and spread lightly with butter; on one half lay four fried oysters, cover with the other half of roll, and serve with a pickle.
A two-line assembly recipe that assumes you already know how to fry an oyster. Most of the work is in what the book leaves out.
- Vienna rollsA crisp-crusted white roll of the Vienna-bread type, with a thin, shattery crust and soft crumb; sizes varied. A small ciabatta roll, a French bread roll or a bolillo does the same job; a soft burger bun is likelier to collapse under the oyster liquor.
- Cut into halvesProbably split lengthwise rather than crosswise, though the recipe does not say. Some period oyster loaves had the soft crumb pulled out of the top half to make a hollow for the oysters and their juices, which is worth doing here.
- Fried oystersShucked oysters, drained, dredged in seasoned flour or cornmeal or dipped in egg and cracker crumbs, then fried in fat at 365-375F until the coating is golden, about 2 minutes. They are done when the edges ruffle and the coating sets; longer and they tighten and go rubbery.
- Oyster sizeFour oysters per roll assumes the small-to-medium shucked oysters sold by the pint. Modern select or extra-select oysters are larger, so three may fill a roll. A pint of shucked oysters may run to roughly two dozen, depending on grade.
- Spread lightly with butterButter the cut faces before filling. On a hot roll it acts as a moisture barrier, which is the point when a fried oyster sits directly on the crumb.
- Serve with a pickleThe singular suggests a whole cucumber pickle alongside rather than slices in the sandwich. A dill spear or a few slices of half-sour cucumber gives the acidity the dish needs; tartar sauce or a squeeze of lemon inside the roll is a reasonable modern addition.
- YieldOne roll per person as a light lunch. Buy a pint of shucked oysters for four sandwiches and expect a few casualties in the frying.
Oyster loaves belong to a period when oysters were cheap urban food rather than a luxury, eaten fried, stewed, scalloped and creamed by households of ordinary means. The best-known version is the New Orleans oyster loaf, a hollowed-out loaf packed with fried oysters and often called la mediatrice, "the peacemaker" -- traditionally said to be what a man brought home to his wife after a late night out, though the story is folklore rather than documented fact. That loaf is generally regarded as an ancestor of the oyster po' boy. What appears here is the tidy, portion-sized parlour version: a single Vienna roll rather than a whole loaf, sized for a lunch box or a sandwich plate.