[189-*] Oyster sauce, [No. 278]; preserved oysters, [No. 280].
[189-†] Those are called common oysters, which are picked up on the French coast, and laid in the Colchester beds.
These are never so fine and fat as the natives, and seldom recover the shock their feelings receive from being transported from their native place: delicate little creatures, they are as exquisite in their own taste as they are to the taste of others!
[189-‡] Oysters are thus called, that are born, as well as bred and fed, in this country, and are mostly spit in the Burnham and Mersey rivers: they do not come to their finest condition till they are near four years old.
[189-§] Will Rabisha, in his receipt to “broil oysters,” (see his Cookery, page 144,) directs, that while they are undergoing this operation, they should be fed with white wine and grated bread.
In Boyle’s Works, 4to. 1772, vol. ii. p. 450, there is a very curious chapter on the eating of oysters.
[191-*] “Animal food being composed of the most nutritious parts of the food on which the animal lived, and having already been digested by the proper organs of an animal, requires only solution and mixture; whereas vegetable food must be converted into a substance of an animal nature, by the proper action of our own viscera, and consequently requires more labour of the stomach, and other digestive organs.”—Burton on the Non-naturals, page 213.
[192-*] New-York and other places on the sea-coast of the United States, afford oysters in great plenty and perfection, and the various methods of preparing them are well known. A.