Recreating a Family Recipe: Oyster Stew

Do you have any family recipes that, when you ask the cook why they make it, the answer is “because we always have”?

In our family, it was oyster stew.

Last week I asked my 90-year-old 100 percent Swedish-American grandmother why she always made oyster stew on Christmas Eve, and her answer was “because that’s what we always did.” Her mother before her had made oyster stew on Christmas Eve, and her mother before her. (Someone on the other side of the family made lutefisk on Christmas Eve, she told me, but oyster stew is objectively a tastier dish.)

In all of the childhood Christmases we spent at my grandparents’ farm in Virginia, there was only one Christmas Eve when oyster stew wasn’t served. And although most of the 17 of us (9 of us children) only slurped at the broth–and only then because of our parents’ disapproving looks–there was a wild uproar the year it wasn’t served.

Embarrassingly, I was one of those in the majority who only tasted the broth.

But now that I have overcome the broth-slurping, strange seafood-avoiding stage of my life–my husband and I devour raw oysters–this year I was determined to re-create the family tradition and attempt the recipe myself.

I interviewed my grandmother, who had never really used a recipe when she made it. She said it was basically oysters, butter, milk, half-and-half, onions, parsley, salt, and pepper. I got to work writing my own recipe. It was surprisingly simple.

My husband and I sat down on Christmas Eve to our homemade oyster stew. My grandmother will be thrilled to know that we intend to make this a new-old family tradition and pass it on to our daughter (we hope she isn’t one of the broth slurpers!).

Here is the recipe I came up with and used:

Christmas Eve Oyster Stew

2 T. butter

2 T. grated onion

2 T. minced celery

2 c. shucked oysters in their liquor

1 c. milk

2 c. half-and-half

1/2 to 1 tsp. salt

1/8 tsp. pepper

2 T. chopped fresh parsley

The full recipe is available on Plummelo.com.