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Oyster Salad (Scrape and cut into half inch)
Scrape and cut into half inch pieces sufficient well blanched celery to measure one pint. Pick over and wash fifty large oysters, put in a saucepan with one quarter of a teaspoonful of salt and a dash of cayenne, and shake over the fire until plumped; drain and set aside until cold, then mix with the celery and a French dressing. Line a salad bowl with lettuce leaves, arrange the salad in it, garnish with mayonnaise and barberries.
A late-Victorian composed salad that depends on two things: oysters barely cooked, and everything thoroughly cold before it meets the dressing.
- Plumped, not cooked"Shake over the fire until plumped" means one to two minutes, until the edges just ruffle and the flesh firms. Oysters held longer than that tighten into rubber and leak liquor into the salad.
- Blanched celeryIn this period this meant celery grown banked up with soil or boards so the stalks stayed pale and mild, not celery dipped in boiling water. Use the inner hearts of a modern head; the outer ribs are too stringy and green-tasting for a raw salad.
- Fifty oystersLarge shucked oysters of the period were sold by count, and the biggest grades ran only a few dozen to the quart, so fifty large oysters is somewhere in the region of a quart of shucked oysters. A pint jar of shucked oysters will roughly halve the recipe.
- Drain twiceDrain after cooking, then again after chilling; oysters continue to give up liquor as they cool. Any liquid left behind will thin the French dressing and make the lettuce collapse.
- French dressingIn American books of this era this is a plain vinaigrette, roughly three parts oil to one part vinegar with salt and pepper, whisked at the last minute. It is not the sweet orange bottled dressing that took the name later.
- BarberriesPreserved or pickled barberries were a standard garnish, sold in jars and valued for their sharp red points against pale food. They are hard to find now; pomegranate seeds or halved cranberries preserved in syrup give the same effect.
- Keep it coldCooked oysters sitting at room temperature are the weak point in this dish. Cool them uncovered in the refrigerator and dress the salad only when you are ready to bring it to the table.
- YieldServes six to eight as a first course, or four as a light supper dish with bread and butter.
Oyster salad belongs to the decades when oysters were abundant and cheap on the American coast, sold by the barrel and the gallon in every city market, and celery was the expensive item on the plate. Blanched celery was a prized winter luxury, often served on its own in tall cut-glass vases as a table ornament. The combination of the two, bound with a plain vinaigrette and finished with mayonnaise, is a fixture of turn-of-the-century salad chapters, appearing alongside lobster, chicken and sweetbread salads as the sort of dish served at luncheons, card parties and church suppers. The barberry garnish points to the same taste: a preserved fruit kept in the storeroom purely for its color, in an era when a salad was expected to be arranged as much as mixed.