Oyster Pie
It’s a thousand pities that everybody doesn’t know how to make good puff paste, for without that knowledge it is impossible to make a good oyster pie; but in case you are an adept at puff paste making, just try concocting one some fine day. Line a pie dish with the paste and fill it with uncooked rice; butter the paste that covers the edge of the dish and lay a cover of puff paste over the pie; press the edges together a bit and trim them neatly. Meanwhile prepare a quart of oysters by draining them from their liquor and chopping them fine. Mix a teaspoonful of cornstarch in a very little cold milk, and pour over slowly half a pint of boiling milk or cream; when it is thick and smooth add to it an ounce of butter. Season the oysters with salt and pepper, and stir them into the mixture; simmer for five minutes. When the pie-crust is done remove it from the oven, take off the top crust, turn out all the rice and fill the dish with the oysters; put on the cover again, and set in the oven to get thoroughly hot.
They do say the recollection of an oyster pie so made is one of the sweetest echoes to start when memory plays a tune on the heart, even though one lives to be as old as Methuselah.
Pickled Oysters
And now let me tell you of a way to prepare oysters so that they may come under the head of stand-bys, so dear to every housekeeper. Take two quarts of oysters and put them into a porcelain-lined saucepan with their own liquor strained, half a grated nutmeg, a teaspoonful of salt, a little cayenne, and half a pint of strong vinegar. Then into a muslin bag put half a teaspoonful of cloves, two blades of mace, a teaspoonful of allspice, and two bay leaves; put this in with the oysters. Let them cook very slowly, stirring all the while with a wooden spoon. As soon as they come to a boil pour them into an earthenware jar. When thoroughly cold they are ready to serve; if they are well covered in a cool place they can easily be kept for a week or even longer.
Of late years, when the subject of home-made preserves and pickles has been referred to in my hearing, I have been wont to assume a very superior and quite top-lofty air, and to remark in a know-it-all tone of voice: “Oh, life’s too short for me to bother with anything like that; give me the fruits and vegetables and all other edibles that one can buy preserved in tin or glass the year round; they’re better than home-made nine times out of ten, they cost no more in the end, and there’s slight necessity for guesswork when you are to open a can as to the condition of its contents.” Sometimes, if I had a very tractable audience, this would end all discussion for the time being. At others it would fairly set the advocates of domestic preserving by their ears, and then you may be sure they defended their cause in good earnest. But they never induced me to go in for anything of the sort. Still, I now have on hand a very fair array of jars and bottles and tumblers filled with jellies and jams and pickles, and they are home-made, and they are old-fashioned and I am proud of them. And I’ll tell you how it happened. Out in the country, three weeks or so ago, I was passing a farmhouse where the door opening into the kitchen stood wide open, and through that open door came a fragrant breath that called to mind numberless sweet woodsy smells. There was in it a suggestion of sweet fern, a reminder of bayberry, a hint of sassafras and a distinct likeness of grapevine blossoms. And this divine odor was conjured up, I learned, by the stewing of grapes—wild grapes, of course; the cultivated varieties being quite out of it when it comes to preserving. That settled it. Within twenty-four hours from that time there was issuing from my kitchen an odor of wild grapes a-stewing.
Grape Jam
To go into particulars, I was making grape jam. I weighed the grapes, and to every pound I allowed three-quarters of a pound of sugar. Then I squeezed the pulp out of the skins, putting the pulp in one bowl and the skins in another. The sugar with a quarter of its quantity of water was boiled in a preserving kettle till it was quite clear. Then was added to it the pulp of the grapes which were boiled ever so slowly for twenty minutes—when they were rubbed through a hair sieve and put back on the stove, with the skins added to them. Then they were boiled until the skins filled and looked good and plump. And when they were quite cooled I put them into jars covered tightly to keep out the air. Next winter I shall depend upon this jam to help me out at many a luncheon with hot buttered toast or with waffles. And I’ve a strong notion that it won’t play me false.
Quince Marmalade