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What are oysters today? Basically, an appetizer; and, in this cold, raw seafood era, a cold, raw one. But for most of American history, they were one of the main things we ate--and cooked.
And not just on the coasts, but everywhere. Deep in the Midwest, many people ordered a barrel of oysters at the beginning of December and worked on it all month, refrigerating it by simply sticking it outdoors. For Christmas dinner, there might be oyster stuffing in the turkey, oyster stew beside it and maybe even oyster sauce on top of it.
The most influential mid-19th century magazine, Godey's Lady's Book, once ran a sentimental story about a family that dealt with its financial problems by having a potluck Christmas dinner. Their benevolent Uncle Ellis promised, "And I ... will get as many first- rate Baltimore oysters as you can eat, and Auntie must cook them, for there is no oyster soup like hers."
Maybe there aren't so many Americans who pride themselves on their oyster soup these days. But for a long time, this country was frankly crazy for oysters.
In the 1830s, an enterprising Baltimore merchant sent out "oyster expresses," wagons loaded with oysters that traveled all the way to Pittsburgh as fast as the roads of the time permitted. Originally shipped oysters were mostly pickled in vinegar, but soon there was an oyster-canning industry. And as transport improved, live oysters in the shell were sent farther and farther inland.
During the Gold Rush, when a sort of oyster scramble called Hangtown Fry was the epitome of luxury dining, canned oysters couldn't satisfy California's hunger, so Washington oystermen started shipping their bivalves to San Francisco in 1851. As a result, at one time there was more gold per capita in Oysterville, Wash., than anyplace on the West Coast outside San Francisco.
Oysters were shipped by rail long before slaughtered beef was, and it was the railways that satisfied the Midwest's oyster mania.
"I marvel every time I open a 19th century cookbook," says Jan Longone, curator of American culinary history at the University of Michigan. "Wherever the towns are, people are eating oysters. In the first cookbook published in Kansas, in 1874, one of the chapters is on things...