and, if in season, a head of celery split fine and cut into small
pieces. Season it to your taste with pepper.

Mix the whole together, and set it in a closely covered vessel
over a slow fire. When it comes to a boil, put in the oysters; and
when it comes to a boil again, they will be sufficiently done.

Before you send it to table put into the tureen some toasted bread
cut into small squares, omitting the crust.


PLAIN OYSTER SOUP.

Take two quarts of large oysters. Strain their liquor into a soup
pan; season it with a tea-spoonful of whole pepper, a tea-spoonful
of whole allspice, the same quantity of whole cloves, and seven or
eight blades of mace. If the oysters are fresh, add a large tea-spoonful
of salt; if they are salt oysters, none is requisite. Set
the pan on hot coals, and boil it slowly (skimming it when
necessary) till you find that it is sufficiently flavoured with
the taste of the spice. In the mean time (having cut out the hard
part) chop the oysters fine, and season them with a powdered
nutmeg. Take the liquor from the fire, and strain out the spice
from it. Then return it to the soup pan, and put the chopped
oysters into it, with whatever liquid may have continued about
them. Add a quarter of a pound of butter, divided into little bits
and rolled in flour. Cover the pan, and let it boil hard about
five minutes. If oysters are cooked too much they become tough and
tasteless.