Oyster Stew
Put a quart of oysters on the fire in their own liquor. The moment they begin to boil, skim them out, and add to the liquor a half-pint of hot cream, salt and cayenne pepper to taste. Skim it well before the hot cream is added, add to the oysters an ounce and a half of butter broken in small pieces. Serve immediately.
A short recipe whose whole method rests on one point: the oysters leave the pot the instant the liquor moves. Everything else is seasoning and assembly.
- The hingeSkim the oysters out the moment the liquor trembles, before a full boil. Oysters cook in a minute or two; held in simmering liquid they tighten into rubber and shed their liquor.
- A quart of oystersShucked oysters were sold by liquid measure, so a quart means roughly 2 lb of oysters and their liquor together, or two supermarket 16 oz containers. If your oysters come with little liquor, top up with bottled clam juice or a light fish stock rather than water.
- Half-pint of creamOne cup. Heat it separately and do not let it boil in the pot, or the mixture can break. Period 'cream' varied in richness; heavy cream gives the richest result, half-and-half a thinner, more familiar stew.
- Skim, then skim againOyster liquor throws a grey foam and often carries grit and bits of shell. Skimming before the cream goes in is the difference between a clean stew and a gritty one; straining the liquor through a fine sieve does the job faster.
- An ounce and a half of butterThree tablespoons, broken small so it melts over the drained oysters rather than pooling. The recipe does not say so explicitly, but the oysters and butter are presumably returned to the hot liquor and cream off the heat.
- CayenneThe recipe leaves it to taste; an eighth of a teaspoon for the whole pot gives a bare warmth at the back of it. Salt lightly; oyster liquor is already saline.
- Yield and servingServes four as a first course, two or three as supper. Traditionally sent to table with oyster crackers or split water biscuits, and it will not hold — ladle it out at once.
Oyster stew of this kind was ordinary American food in the nineteenth century, when oysters were cheap, shucked by the barrel and shipped inland by rail and wagon. The formula is deliberately bare our liquor, cream, butter, salt, cayenne our because the point was the oyster itself. Oyster stew is also often said to be associated with Christmas Eve and Friday suppers in Catholic households, a link traditionally traced to the meatless fast day rather than to any single region. The abundance behind a casual "quart of oysters" is the part that has not survived: East Coast beds were heavily depleted by the early twentieth century, and the price of the dish today bears no relation to its place in this book.