The Philadelphia Press discourses of this really national article of diet as follows : In 1599 it was put on record in Butler's Dyet' Dry Dinner that "it is unseasonable and unwholesome in all the months that have not an R in their names to eat an oyster." Now, this Butler was a Vicar of an English country parish, where oysters probably never went before they were three months old. It is not likely, therefore, that what Butler knew about oysters was worth knowing. Besides, these oysters were English oysters and not worth eating in a month which had an R in it. There is no reason why they should not be eaten except during the three or four weeks of spawning-time, which differs in different locali ties. Americans are a nation of oyster-eaters more than any other on earth. Everyone eats oysters, Who, indeed, has not heard with a thrill of gustatory pleasure, the familiar announce ment of "Raw, roast, fried, scolloped, steamed, stewed and panned " ? The very variety itself shows that they solve for any course. They are, hors d'oeuvrs, soup, fish, entre, and rele‘e.
They are good in any part of the dinner, and the Chinese even use them as a sweet, smothered ;n sucar and in sweet vinegar. Alt summer long the oyster-eating American citizen has gone without his favorite article of food. Already the inquiry is made at the early restaurant, " Gotnyoysters ?" Soon the rosy-cheeked opener will take his stand behind the c ,unter, decked out in a. neat white apron and newly-polished shirt-pin, holding his death dealing knife in his hand ready to give a half-dozen Blue Points, Cape May salts, 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 sur mounted by a crystal block of ice. Like a house of cards the pile diminishes before the opener. Then the revel begins. Early in
the morning the small white oyster in its pearly shell and accom panied by the yellow lemon and dust of red cayenne is laid before the jaded palate of him who has been "going it a bit" the night before. To him the sight alone acts as a reviver, and after the row of shells is emptied he feels like a new man. At noon the milky stew holds sway. At night there is nothing more sought after by theatre goers than the oyster which lies concealed in a new dress of crisp brown batter. Meantime the bachelor sights the hissing and crackling of the bivalves as he rests on an open grate roasting with perfume appetizing enough to give a dyspeptic the desire of a Garagantua. And so it goes ; from morning till night, from the first of September to the last of April, the oyster is in constant demand in the home, the hotel, and the restaurant. Little do other people know of the delights of the oyster. The English, with the exception of the Whitstable native, know not the real oyster flavor ; the Dutch gather at Ostend, some little copper bottomed things they call oysters ; the French almost literally manufacture a tasteless imitation ; the Italian eats a half-bred fresh-water mussel, and the other foreigners swallow a combina tion of these and call them oysters, but they are not. Nowhere else but here can be obtained that sweet, juicy, solid and nutty meat which has the delicate flavor of the pure breath of ocean.
Here alone the living animal between two shells combines "fish, flesh, fowl, and good red herring," all in one oyster. Here alone does he have his perfect sauce with him—that combination of ozone, peptone, and other scientific "one' which gives health, a good digestion and is as invigorating as the salt sea spray. Here alone is the oyster perfect, and his time to be swallowed is at hand."