TEMPLE BAR.
CONTENTS.
| CHAPTER I. | |
| THE OYSTER IN SEASON. | |
| The R. canon correct; Alimentary Qualities of the Oyster; Profitable Investment; Billingsgate, and London Consumption; English Oyster-beds; Jersey Oysters; French Oyster-beds on the Coast of Brittany | [9] |
| CHAPTER II. | |
| ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE OYSTER. | |
| The Ancients; Oysters a Greek and Roman Luxury; Sergius Orata, and the Oyster-beds of Baia; Immense Consumption at Rome; Failure of the Circean and Lucrinian Oyster-beds under Domitian, and Introduction of Rutupians from Britain; Agricola, Constantine, and Helena; Athenian Oysters, and Aristides. | [21] |
| CHAPTER III. | |
| MODERN HISTORY OF THE OYSTER. | |
| Fall of the Rutupian Supremacy; Louis IV. and William of Normandy; Conquest of England, and Revival of Oyster-eating in England; The Oyster under Legal Protection; American Oysters | [24] |
| CHAPTER IV. | |
| THE OYSTER AT HOME. | |
| Its Nature, Colour, and Structure; Natural Food; Perception of the changes of Light; Uses of the Celia; Fecundity and Means of Propagation; Age; Fossil Oysters in Berkshire and in the Pacific; Power of Locomotion | [28] |
| CHAPTER V. | |
| THE OYSTER IN ITS NEW SETTLEMENT. | |
| Dredging for Oysters; Oyster-beds and their formation; Sergius Orata; Pliny the Elder; Baia and the Lucrine Sea; Roman Epicurism and Gluttony; Martial and Horace, Cicero and Seneca; Masticate Oysters, and do not bolt them whole; Mediterranean and Atlantic Oysters; Agricola and the Rutupians; Apicius Cœlius, Trajan, Pliny, and the Vivarium | [37] |
| CHAPTER VI. | |
| THE OYSTER ON ITS TRAVELS. | |
| The Isle of Sheppey, the Medway, and Whitstable; Milton, Queenborough, Rochester, and Faversham Oysters; Colchester and Essex Beds; Edinburgh Pandores and Aberdours; Dublin Carlingfords and Powldoodies; Poole and its Oyster-bank; Cornish Oysters and the Helford Beds; Poor Tyacke, and How he was Done; Dredgers and their Boats; Auld Reekie's Civic Ceremonial; Song of the Oyster; its Voyage to Market, and Journey by Coach and Rail | [45] |
| CHAPTER VII. | |
| THE OYSTER AT ITS JOURNEY'S END. | |
| Oyster Stalls; How to Open the Oyster; an Oyster Supper; Beer, Wines, and Spirits; Roasted, Fried, Stewed, and Scolloped Oysters; Oyster Soup, and Oyster Sauce; Broiled Oysters; Oyster Pie; Oyster Toast; Oyster Patties; Oyster Powder; Pickled Oysters; Oyster Loaves; Oyster Omelet; Cabbage, Larks, and Oysters; and Frogs and Oysters | [54] |
| CHAPTER VIII. | |
| THE OYSTER AND THE DOCTOR. | |
| Oyster-eating in Prussia; Disgusting Wagers; Oysters better than Pills, A Universal Remedy; Professional Opinions; When Ladies should eat them; Repugnance overcome; Oysters as an External Application; Chemical Analysis; How to tell if Dead before Opening | [68] |
| CHAPTER IX. | |
| THE OYSTER ABROAD. | |
| British Oysters in Ostend Quarters; the Whitstable in a Slow Coach; Holstein, Schleswig, and Heligoland Natives; Norwegian and Bremer Oysters; American Oysters; French Oysters; Dutch Oysters; Mediterranean Oysters and Classical Judges | [75] |
| CHAPTER X. | |
| "THE TREASURE OF AN OYSTER." | |
| Sweet names given to Pearls; Barry Cornwall Proctor's lines; Component parts of Pearls; Mother-of-pearl; How Pearls are formed, Sorrows into Gems; Their nucleus; Sir Everard Home and Sir David Brewster; Curious shapes and fancy Jewellery; Pearl Fisheries; Bahrein Island and Bay of Candalchy; Miseries of the Divers; Pearls as Physic; Immense value of recorded Pearls; A Perle for a Prince; Most precious Pearls | [82] |
THE OYSTER
CHAPTER I.
THE OYSTER IN SEASON.
The R. canon correct; Alimentary Qualities of the Oyster; Profitable Investment; Billingsgate, and London Consumption; English Oyster-beds; Jersey Oysters; French Oyster-beds on the Coast of Brittany.
OF the Millions who live to eat and eat to live in this wide world of ours, how few are there who do not, at proper times and seasons, enjoy a good oyster. It may not be an ungrateful task, therefore, if I endeavour to inform them what species of animal the little succulent shell-fish is, that affords to man so much gastronomical enjoyment—how born and bred and nurtured; when, and where; and, lastly, how best it may be eaten, whether in its living and natural state, or having undergone the ordeal of cooking by the skill of a superior artist.
I have oftentimes been told that it is a mere question of fastidiousness, or fashion, that oysters should be served for human food only at a certain fixed period of the year—those months possessing the letter r being proverbially the only months when the oyster is fit for human food. Why not, such reasoners have said, eat oysters all the year round? Life is short. Why not obtain the first of gastronomical enjoyments every month of the year and every day of the month? I can in no manner go with these opinions, either from my practical knowledge of the oyster, or from any just reasoning.
I am aware that there are many good men and true, and others calling themselves, somewhat erroneously, sportsmen, beyond the white cliffs of Britain, who would eat an oyster on the hottest day of June and July as they would a partridge, a pheasant, or a salmon at any season of the year. Sufficient the names oyster, partridge, pheasant—all gastronomical delights—all to be eaten, and by them eaten whensoever and wheresoever served, what matters it? I am also aware that in our good City of London, in the hottest and earliest days of August,[[1]] oysters are gulped down by the thousand: it is, nevertheless, an error—a revolting, unhealthy, unclean error—which ought to be denied, both at home and abroad, by the strong hand of the law.