TO MAKE A CRAB PIE.

Procure the crabs alive, and put them in boiling water, along with
some salt. Boil them for a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes,
according to the size. When cold pick the meat from the claws and
body. Chop all together, and mix it with crumbs of bread, pepper and
salt, and a little butter. Put all this into the shell and brown in a
hot oven. A crab shell will hold the meat of two crabs.


CRABS. (Soft Shell.)

Crabs may be boiled as lobsters. They make a fine dish when stewed.
Take out the meat from the shell, put it into a saucepan with butter,
pepper, salt, a pinch of mace and a very little water; dredge with
flour and let simmer five minutes over a slow fire. Serve hot; garnish
the dish with the claws laid around it.

The usual way of cooking them is frying them in plenty of butter and
lard mixed; prepare them the same as frying fish. The spongy substance
from the sides should be taken off, also the sand bag. Fry a nice
brown and garnish with parsley.


OYSTERS.

Oysters must be fresh and fat to be good. They are in season from
September to May.