“The supper was very simple. There were unlimited supplies of those delicate little oysters which seem created with a special view to bachelors’ supper-parties, and the refreshment of exhausted playgoers; and whose native beds the ignorant foreigner might not unnaturally imagine to lie somewhere at the back of the Strand. And to wash these down, Mr. Lowther had provided Chablis, white Hermitage, and Rüdesheimer. There were spatch-cocks and devilled kidneys, fried potatoes, monster lobsters, marvellous cheeses from the remotest cantons of Switzerland, and the most delicate varieties of green-stuff from a French fruiterer’s in the purlieus of Leicester Square. There was no pretence of an elaborate entertainment; but there was an open case of sparkling Moselle by the side of Mr. Lowther’s chair, into which he dipped about once in five minutes; and the young man from the tavern had been initiated into the mysteries of a claret-cup, which he compounded at a rickety little sideboard in the inner room.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
(_For Patties or Vol-au-Vent_) 1 pint oysters 1¼ lb. lobster 1½ cups cold water 1 stalk celery 1 slice onion Salt ¼ cup butter ⅓ cup flour ¾ cup cream Worcestershire Sauce Lemon juice Paprika Clean and parboil oysters; drain, and add to liquor body bones and tough claw meat from lobster, water, celery, and onion. Cook slowly until stock is reduced to one cup, and strain. Make sauce of butter, flour, strained stock, and cream. Add oysters and lobster meat cut in strips; then add seasonings. One-half teaspoon beef extract is an improvement to this dish.
Sources: The passage is from M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon, Only a clod, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Farmer, The Boston cooking-school cook book of 1896, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — forest cloth, oyster stamp.