Oysters on the Half Shell

Ingredients 6 oysters on the half shell 2 lemon wedges a dash of horseradish 1/8 c. cocktail sauce

Directions: 1. Chill oysters. 2. Open and leave juice in deposit shell. Serve on cracked ice. 3. Add lemon juice and dip in cocktail sauce with a cautious bit of horseradish and enjoy.

Oysters on the Half Shell

by Lael Morgan

Not surprisingly, the menus for George and Martha Washington’s famous three course dinners involved a lot of oysters.  They lived near the Virginia coast which many early settlers counted on for its bounty.  Oyster loaves—the critters creamed and baked briefly in hollowed out bread shells sealed with egg whites with buttered exteriors—were popular.  So were scalloped oysters which were much like scalloped potatoes. However, the less squeamish preferred them raw.

You should also be warned that oysters are thought to be an aphrodisiac, Yet my parents, who met and married late in life and adored each other as well as oysters, bought them by the peck and probably not for sexual incentive.  (Still, it’s possible that oysters are part of my DNA).

Shortly after my birth, my family moved from the coast to central Maine, where seafood could not be trusted.  So I was introduced to raw oysters, not by my parents but by my college roommate’s father who apparently did not enjoy them to the fullest.

“Just bite them once and then swallow them,” he instructed. However, I decided to take a second bite and became addicted.

Live oysters are hard to open but there are good instructions on how to do it on line. And if you are emotionally torn about the experience of eating live seafood, ask yourself if it is humane to boil and eat spinach, which also has feelings although lacking in deep thinking capacity.

For your first raw oyster adventure, keep the extras simple.  Recipes for Mignonette Sauce for raw oysters contain so much ground pepper and garlic that I suspect the authors didn’t want to taste the main course, but to keep up with the elite by eating something that is labor intensive and expensive.  Start with the basic the recipe below and enjoy exploring beyond it.

Blushing Bunny for Easter Relief

Ingredients 8 oz. sharp cheddar cheese shredded ¼ c. sour cream 10.5 oz.can tomato soup unadulterated ½ tsp dry mustard 2 tsp. Worcestershire Sauce 4 slices of toast or the equivalent in saltines

Additions:  1/2 tsp. garlic salt, 1/2 tsp. pepper Directions: 1.  Heat sour cream, Worcestershire, mustard and soup undiluted.   2. Add cheese and stir until melted. 3. Serve immediately on toast or crackers.

Blushing Bunny for Easter Relief

by Lael Morgan

Easter dinner or supper will be one of the biggest meals of the year for many; so big that you’ll be blitzed by the media with recipes on how to cook a ham and make traditional hot crossed buns. Neither recipe can be found in our Kitchen Stories Cookbook, but I do suggest you take a look at our Welch Rarebit on page 120 for an interesting stop-gap while waiting for the big deal.

Why?  Because in the frenzy of preparing Easter dinner, the rest of the day is often forgotten and stomachs growl.  So let me introduce a perfect fill-in dish for the holiday. It will delight the youngsters before the big event if that is scheduled for evening, or serve as supper for following a big lunch.

Welch Rarebit is a traditional comfort food which was created to cover up for hunters who came home empty handed.  It is simply cheese in white sauce or with a sour cream base served hot over toast or crackers.  But my creative mother—strapped by a tight budget and lack of ration stamps during World War II—created Blushing Bunny by adding a can of Campbell’s tomato soup to the mix. 

My little brother and I loved the very thought of this creation which we crunched on saltines.  And we still think of it as nifty. Holiday or no holiday, it is a lite but complete meal if you serve it with salad.