Period Artificial Oysters

[lupaglupa]

This recipe for a savory fritter is one of many recipes for "mock" foods that can be found in older cookbooks. Generally these recipes try to approximate a delicacy that was too perishable or expensive for ordinary households to buy. I can't imagine the end product tasted anything like a fried oyster! But they sound good anyway -

Artificial Oysters. - Grate as many ears of green corn as will make one pint of pulp ; add one tea-cupful of flour, half teacup butter, one egg, and pepper and salt to suit your taste. Dropped and fried in butter.

Source - The House-Keepers Guide and Everybody's Handbook by Smith and Swinney, published in Cincinnati in 1864. Available online at archive.org

 

[donna]

Mock oysters were popular. I know there another recipe for them on Food Forum. Thanks for sharing this one.

 

[lupaglupa]

This one surprised me @donna because it doesn't have any spicing or other additions that would make the fritters "oystery"

 

[donna]

I bumped thread I had on them.

 

[donna]

It seems the folks at time were clever, when didn't have the main ingredient for a recipe, made up a recipe to taste like what they had hoped they could find.

 

[lupaglupa]

It seems the folks at time were clever, when didn't have the main ingredient for a recipe, made up a recipe to taste like what they had hoped they could find.

In a way, the mock recipes from that era are no different than the ones you can find today that address dietary needs. I have recipes for mock tuna salad that have no tuna and a mock lobster roll that has no lobster - both designed for vegetarian and/or vegan cooks.