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Shellfish: 120 Vintage Oyster, Lobster, Crab & Clam Recipes, Annotated with Modern Measures & Method
Newly annotated with modern measures, methods & doneness cues.
There has never been a time so mad for the oyster as the turn of the 20th century — oysters were cheap and everywhere, shucked at the oyster cellars of every city, eaten raw, fried, scalloped and stewed by the quart. This volume gathers 120 oyster and shellfish receipts from the American and English kitchens of 1877–1922 — oysters every way, lobster, crab and shrimp, clams, scallops and mussels — drawn from fifteen turn-of-the-century cookbooks, from the grand-hotel kitchens where lobster Newburg was born to the community books of the oyster and clam coasts. Each is printed exactly as it first appeared and credited to its source.
Above the line, you get the recipe as written. Below it, what the old cook took for granted and the modern one how to shuck an oyster and keep its precious liquor, how to boil and pick a lobster, how to purge and steam a clam, how to make a Newburg without curdling the yolks, and the one rule that governs all of it — shellfish toughen fast.
Part of Century Old Kitchen — turn-of-the-century cookery, annotated for the kitchen you actually own. Its companion volume, Fish, gathers the finfish.
The three Oysters (44 recipes) · Lobster, Crab & Shrimp (44) · Clams, Scallops, Mussels & Other Shellfish (32).
There has never been a time so mad for the oyster as the turn of the 20th century — oysters were cheap and everywhere, shucked at the oyster cellars of every city, eaten raw, fried, scalloped and stewed by the quart. This volume gathers 120 oyster and shellfish receipts from the American and English kitchens of 1877–1922 — oysters every way, lobster, crab and shrimp, clams, scallops and mussels — drawn from fifteen turn-of-the-century cookbooks, from the grand-hotel kitchens where lobster Newburg was born to the community books of the oyster and clam coasts. Each is printed exactly as it first appeared and credited to its source.
Above the line, you get the recipe as written. Below it, what the old cook took for granted and the modern one how to shuck an oyster and keep its precious liquor, how to boil and pick a lobster, how to purge and steam a clam, how to make a Newburg without curdling the yolks, and the one rule that governs all of it — shellfish toughen fast.
Part of Century Old Kitchen — turn-of-the-century cookery, annotated for the kitchen you actually own. Its companion volume, Fish, gathers the finfish.
The three Oysters (44 recipes) · Lobster, Crab & Shrimp (44) · Clams, Scallops, Mussels & Other Shellfish (32).
97 pages, Paperback
Published August 9, 2026
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