Recipe of the Month: An 1870's Recipe for Oyster Fritters

"Juliet Corson was born in the Roxbury section of Boston in 1841 and opened the Free Training School for Women at age thirty-three, before she learned how to cook. She hired a French chef, thought to have been the celebrated Pierre Blot. Two years later she was living on St. Mark's Place in Manhattan giving cooking classes in her home. She called her classes the New York Cooking School and had one thousand students a year. In everything Corson did, she addressed social conscience. The New York Cooking School tried to charge enormous fees to the rich while asking only a nickel a lesson for the middle class. The poor could attend for free. When New York's economy declined in the 1870's, she self -published controversial pamphlets such as "Fifteen cent dinners for Families of Six" and "How can we live if we are moderately poor". One of her numerous cookbooks, titled Meals for the Million: The People's Cookbook, has eight oyster recipes including this one for oyster fritters, a popular inexpensive dish because it could be made with the smallest, lowest-grade shucked oysters:

    The oysters should be examined for bits of shell, and their liquor strained (I used two 8oz containers of oysters (Pacific) from Winn Dixie. They were huge! I cut them into quarters) 

    Then make a batter by mixing two cupfuls of flour, the yelk [sic] of one raw egg, a tablespoon of salad oil (I used Olive Oil), a dust of cayenne pepper, and sufficient oyster liquor to make the batter just thick enough to sustain the drops from the mixing spoon; (the liquor from the oyster containers was not enough to make the batter so I added some whole milk)

    Plenty of fat should now be heated until it is smoking;(I used about 3" of peanut oil, heated to 375 degrees). The white of the egg should be beaten stiff and gently stirred into the batter when the fat is hot, together with the oysters, either whole or chopped, and it should be put in the hot fat by large spoonful, and fried brown; the fritters when done should be laid on brown paper for a moment to free them from grease (I used a paper towel) and then served.

NOTE: I probably wouldn't make this again, Hah!  As the book alludes to, it was a good recipe for poorer folks, so they could have filled up on flour we had a difficult time tasting the Oysters.  If I was going to make another fritter, I think I'd google a Cajun style recipe - one that had more flavor, and made with Corn Meal. Or maybe just lightly batter the whole oyster and fry it so you get the oyster flavor and texture. 

This Fishing Report was submitted on 6/14/2026 11:31:37 AM by Seamus and last updated on 6/17/2026 10:07:29 PM.

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