Please Don't Quote Me By Caralee Aschenbrenner Now is the season for the public meal the Pancake Breakfast, the Ham Supper or Roast Beef repast, the BBQ and tatey chip simplicity ... All donations accepted to support local programs. Yum! Newspapers of yesteryear read that strawberry fests were extremely popular. Imagine how many fruit patches were handpicked by their owners to furnish the berry for those. Such fests were homegrown.

Beginning in the 1870's and for a couple of decades afterward, oyster suppers were the rage in fund raising or as a treat for the members of any fraternal organization such as the G.A.R. or M.W.A. even in the small towns of the Midwest, oyster stews were regularly advertised as part of the menu at local cafes, often accompanied by notice that ice cream could be had there, too. Of course, you know why. Refrigeration had arrived so those food items could be stored. It became the fashionable thing to advertise oysters and ice cream as a temptation all the way out in the wildernesses of rural America.

As an example of just how far oysters had come by mid-nineteenth century, literally and figuratively, Mr. and Mrs. A. Lincoln while still in Springfield were often noted as hosts at "oyster feasts" exclusively oysters, but served in every conceivable way ... Breaded, boiled, deviled, curried, fricasseed, panned, scalloped, pickled, stewed, steamed; in pies, omelettes, ketchups and fritters.

Reference says that oysters were eaten in huge numbers at meals, somewhat of a feat given the sizes of them back then. It's uncommon today to find an oyster six or eight inches in width but that was an average one in the nineteenth century.

Source gives that when William Make peace Thackerey visited Boston in 1852 he was served six oysters. On seeing their size, the writer bowed his head as if in prayer, then picked the smallest one, opened his mouth wide and struggled to swallow it. Finally succeeding, he looked at the others in despair and when asked how he felt he replied, " ...As if I'd swallowed a small baby!"

You see from these two items how popular oysters were among all walks of life plus the contrast in yesterdays' oyster and today's!

It may surprise you as it did me, to learn that oysters were first enjoyed as long ago as 1837 in Chicago, coming by sleigh from Connecticut. Later express wagons brought them via the Erie Canal across the Great Lakes to Chicago ... In kegs or barrels. Riverboats also carried the bivalve down the Ohio River to Cincinnati which, like Chicago was considered an outpost of the bucolic, hardly stylish enough for an elegant oyster.

Oysters were first served at the Lake House Hotel in Chicago which was the first eatery Out Here to furnish printed menus, napkins and toothpicks!

Most of the settlers here in the Midwest were originally from Back East, the Atlantic seaboard, where oysters were plentiful and a common addition to the meal.

People were familiar with the slupriness of the foodstuff and its taste which reminded the eater of ocean breezes. Those who knew little about the oyster weren't going to be left out of the food chain when it came to clams or oysters, etc. so lapped them up as fast as those familiar with them. Yum!?

By 1851, when the first railroad engine ran into Chicago, the oyster was firmly established there ... Many a corner tap sold oysters, too, or a cafe had them as part of the menu, printed or not. The railroad sped up the delivery times to three days, eastern seaboard to lakeside and beyond, during most of the year.

As long before in history as 1599 "Butler's Dyet Dry Dinner" recorded that it is "unseasonable and unwholesome in all the months that have not an R in their names to eat an oyster." That warning was already nearly four hundred years old and had to do with the fact that the oyster wasn't safe to eat in warm weather. But this was the nineteenth century and refrigeration had arrived via the railroad car, the first of those rolling in 1863. A boon for the shellfish industry.

Butchered meat from Chicago (and Cincinnati) made their numerous way East and brought back oysters, fishes of all kinds and other sea treats easily and sanitarily. That brought down the cost overall so that such became economically available to the working class, the middle class which until then did not have financial access to the oyster. By the 1870's-'80's they were common Out Here in the West.

September through April, that is. A quote is appropriate here ... "Already the inquiry is made at the early restaurant, 'Gotinyoysters?' Soon the rosy-cheeked opener will take his stand behind the counter, decked out in a neat white apron and newly polished shirt pin, holding his death-dealing knife in hand ready to give a half dozen Blue Points, Cape May silts, Coves, Saddle Rocks or Providence Rivers as the case may be. Before him is arranged a neat pile of the bronze-armored bivalves. They are piled up like bricks and surrounded by a crystal block of ice. Like a House of Cards the pile diminishes before the opener ... Then the revel begins."

In New York City in 1877 the Fulton Fish Market alone sold 50,000 oysters daily. At some periods the oyster trade became a "mania" with Americans. Oyster bars offered "all you can eat" for six cents. To cut off the big eater, a "bad" oyster was slipped onto the plate to discourage further consumption.

The Grocers' Handbook, 1886, a trade publication, says of the oyster, "The most common oyster is the Ostrea Virginiana found in all the beds of the Eastern States, perhaps the choicest being those from Chesapeake Bay where they are cultivated very extensively. The total oyster trade from Maine to California has been valued at $50,000,000 annually (1886, remember). They are out of season from May to September when they are spawning and are consequently thin and unhealthy. A valuable peculiarity of the animal is the possibility of sustaining life for a long time after being removed from its native element; properly cared for they may be kept alive and in good condition for weeks if they are placed in a cool, damp place with the mouths up and occasionally sprinkled with brackish water they are said to not only keep alive but to fatten, this tenacity of life is owing to the liquor contained within the shells which serves to sustain the respiratory currents; but when he liquor through evaporation or other causes departs the oyster at once dies. When removed from the shell it may be kept in an edible condition for several days but in this case it is necessary to remove it from the liquor though carefully washed frequently (five or six times) ... Kept cold and excluded from the air they may be kept eight to ten days without injuring their flavor or otherwise affecting their condition as a food." (But PLEASE DON'T QUOTE ME!!!!)

"Mix one pint of salt with thirty pints of water. Put oysters in a tub that does not leak, their mouths upward, then feed them with the above by dipping in a broom and frequently passing it over their mouths. It is said that they will fatten still more by mixing fine meal with the water." from "Housekeeping in Old Virginia, 1877" from the "American Heritage Cookbook and Illustrated History" from which the illustrations were also taken. (1976)

As you see the hastiness of transporting the oyster was not necessarily a must but then in those days without the EPA or CDC or FDA it was better to be safe than sorry. It became a part of its legend to know the speed with which the humble bivalve reached us here in the Northwest Territory. OH, AH ... Three days from Chesapeake Bay to Figeley's Confectionery. Fabulous, that express delivery.

How long has it been since you've had oyster stew? Can't remember? As the Handbook reports, "Americans are a nation of oyster-eaters. Who, indeed, has not heard with a thrill of gustatory pleasure the familiar announcement of 'RAW, roast, fried, scalloped, steamed, stewed and panned?' That variety means they can be served any course ... Hors d' oeuvres, soup, fish, entree and the Chinese even fix them for dessert smothered in sugar and sweet vinegar."

Or would you rather have pancakes and sausage, noodle soup, chili, a stick to your ribs Midwestern kind of public meal donation?

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