Book of Days Tales

On this date in 1881 according to A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Dr Watson and Sherlock Holmes began their first adventure. Doyle wrote A Study in Scarlet in 1886, and the story marks the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. For verisimilitude Doyle gave some exact dates in the story, 4^th March 1881 being the first. The book’s title derives from a speech given by Holmes, to his friend and chronicler Watson on the nature of his work, in which he describes the story’s murder investigation as his “study in scarlet” — “There’s the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it.”

Finding a recipe for Holmes is a challenge because his eating habits are largely absent from the books. If Holmes is true to form, eating is of no interest to him. Doyle certainly shows little interest in describing food in any of his writings. So I have to invent something. The Beeton in Beeton’s Christmas Annual where A Study in Scarlet first appeared, was cookbook author, Isabella Beeton’s, husband. So a Beeton recipe is suitable. I have chosen boiled chicken with oysters simply because it is suitably Victorian. There are many cookbooks available now masquerading as the Sherlock Holmes Cookbook, but they are no more than collections of period recipes with no connexion to the Holmes stories, so I’ll follow suit. Oysters were popular in sauces and dishes in the Victorian period, in part because they were cheap and readily available. The combination of poultry and oysters is delectable. I first came across this combination when I was living and working on the coast of North Carolina where they routinely cooked turkey with an oyster stuffing for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Delightful.

Here’s Isabella Beeton’s recipe. The twist here is that the bird is stuffed with fresh oysters, then packed into a large glass jar, which is immersed in boiling water to cook. In this way the bird does not come in contact with the water, and the cooking juices are preserved. Nowadays I would use a sealable boiling bag for the same effect.

BOILED FOWL, with Oysters.

(Excellent.)

944. INGREDIENTS.—1 young fowl, 3 dozen oysters, the yolks of 2 eggs, 1/4 pint of cream.

Mode.—Truss a young fowl as for boiling; fill the inside with oysters which have been bearded and washed in their own liquor; secure the ends of the fowl, put it into a jar, and plunge the jar into a saucepan of boiling water. Keep it boiling for 1-1/2 hour, or rather longer; then take the gravy that has flowed from the oysters and fowl, of which there will be a good quantity; stir in the cream and yolks of eggs, add a few oysters scalded in their liquor; let the sauce get quite hot, but do not allow it to boil; pour some of it over the fowl, and the remainder send to table in a tureen. A blade of pounded mace added to the sauce, with the cream and eggs, will be found an improvement.

Time.—1-1/2 hour. Average cost, 4s. 6d.

Sufficient for 3 or 4 persons.

Seasonable from September to April.