Antebellum Fried Oysters

Oysters have a peculiar place in our historical foodways. Once plentiful across the Chesapeake Bay, as well as both seaboards and the Gulf of Mexico, their abundance enabled the bivalve to become a food item that was available to everyone. And, for some, especially the enslaved Africans who worked on plantations up and down the Chesapeake Bay during Antebellum times, the oyster was an important staple of their meager diet.

Most slave owners provided little more than a monthly or periodic allotment of cornmeal, salt, and poor-quality meat. For example, George Washington provided his slaves who worked at Mount Vernon with "1 quart of cornmeal and 5-8 ounces of salted fish (usually shad or herring)."  It was just enough, in the eyes of owners like Washington, to sustain the slaves. "[A]s much as they can eat without waste and nothing more," in the words of the General and former President. From the slaves' perspective, it was not enough to survive. This led slaves to search for food that would supplement their diets, ending with whatever they could find or catch. 

Oysters were an important part of this supplement. As Frederick Douglass once wrote, the enslaved at the Wye House (which was a plantation on Maryland's eastern shore), the enslaved African-Americans gathered oysters to "make up the deficiency of their scanty allowance of food." The collection of oysters from local waterways is a practice that can be traced across the Atlantic Ocean. A reknowned historian and chef, Michael Twitty, saw the parallels between Virginia and Senegal. While walking through the Kermel Market in Dakar, Senegal's capital, Twitty noticed the "blue-hued crabs, the fish that resembled shad or rockfish, and the shallow troughs filled with oysters," which "transport[ed his] mind to the Chesapeake and its tributaries." It was common practice in Senegambia (the combination of present day Senegal and The Gambia) for families to collect crabs and oysters, along with other crustaceans and shellfish, from the brackish waters along the Gambia river. 

When Africans were forcibly brought to the new world as slaves, they brought this collective knowledge about oystering with them. Slaves could have gone out at low tides and collected oysters from reefs close to the shore. Slaves worked on oyster vessels, plying the waters of the bay and tonging for oysters. As an aside, slaves who worked on these vessels were some of the first to be emancipated, long before President Lincoln gave his address at Gettysburg, through the issuance of Seaman Protection Certificates (as early as 1797) that defined the holder of such a certificate as a U.S. citizen. Indeed, Frederick Douglass escaped from slavery posing as a seaman, borrowing a certificate from another African-American. 

Back at their quarters on the planation, enslaved African-Americans often ate oysters right out of the shell. Cooks would also prepare oysters using what little they had on hand, such as that cornmeal and whatever cooking oil or lard they could find. This recipe seeks to recreate a very basic preparation of fried oysters that could have been prepared by slaves in their cabins for their families. No fancy mignonettes, no special preparations. Just oysters, cornmeal and cooking oil. 

I prepared this recipe, as well as this post, because I deeply believe that we need to learn and understand all of our history, both the good and the bad, especially the bad. If we do not fully understand and come to grips with what our country has done, then we can never truly improve our country or even come close to the ideals upon which it was founded. Moreover, the current administration is trying to wipe away all of the progress that we have made over the past fifty years. The President is using his administration and the government to coercively substitute our history with others' propaganda, whitewashing what our country did to millions of its citizens by diverting their attention toward a false beacon of hope. We should be acknowledging the transgressions of our past, learning from those mistakes as we build a better future for every person in this country. That is what fuels me during each and every day in my actual job. It now fuels me each and every moment of my free time when I work on my blog, as embodied in my personal version of Federal Project Number One.  

ANTEBELLUM FRIED OYSTERS

Recipe adapted from multiple sources

Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 1 pint of shucked oysters or about 24 oysters shucked, liquor reserved
• 1 cup of corn meal, more if needed
• Sea salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup cooking oil, butter or animal lard

Directions:

1.  Prepare the oysters. Pour the cornmeal in a bowl. If you are using a pint of oysters drain the oysters through a finsh mesh sieve or cheesecloth and reserve the liquor in a bowl. Return the oysters to the bowl with the liquor. Take an oyster and roll it in the cornmeal until covered, set aside. Repeat with the remaining oysters.

2. Fry the oysters. Heat the oil, butter or lard in a pan over medium high heat. Add a few oysters at a time, making sure not to overcrowd the oysters. Cook the oysters for 2-3 minutes until they begin to brown and then turn. Brown the other side for 1-2 minutes. Remove and set aside on a plate lined with a paper towel. Repeat with the remaining oysters. Once all oysters have been cooked, serve immediately.

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P.S.: As to the ingredient itself, I wanted to ensure that I used oysters from the Chesapeake Bay, not from somewhere else (such as along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico). While vacationing in the eastern shore of Virginia, I purchased a pint of pre-shucked oysters from the Great Machipongo Clam Shack, which is an amazing restaurant located on Route 13 in the eastern shore of Virginia. The oysters came from H.M. Terry Company, an established oyster farmer that has been operating in Willis Wharf, Virginia since 1903. The oysters were Sewansecotts, which are a briny bivalve cultivated by H.M. Terry in the waters near Hog Island, Virginia.  

PEACE.