A delicious offering to put before your household some night is a
salad of oysters. Have a quart of them, say, drain and wipe them well
from their own liquor. Boil a cup of vinegar, and season it while
boiling with salt and white pepper. Pour it over the oysters, and let
them stand for two hours or so. Then drain them pretty dry, and lay on
a bed of chopped celery in the salad bowl. If the oysters are very
large cut in halves or quarters. Have a layer of chopped celery on top
of the oysters, and coat thickly with mayonnaise. Be sure, however,
that the oysters are perfectly cold before adding to the celery.
Garnish with a few oyster crabs, pickled at the same time the oysters
were pickled, and some sliced olives. To be very, very extravagant in
making this salad, if you so want to be for the purpose of impressing
some one, add to it a few sliced truffles that have been soaked in
white wine for an hour or two.