Fried Oysters

Oysters were a regular treat on the Amish menu. Eastern Pennsylvania’s proximity to the Chesapeake Bay brought the delicacy within easy reach of the cooks in the area. Folks today remember two primary ways they got oysters. A woman in her mid-30’s said, “Some man from Philadelphia came up regularly with oysters and fruit. Mom would ask for 50-cents worth of bananas and that was really a lot. Then she’d buy oysters to fry, scallop, or put in soup.” Another woman, in her 80s, recalls that neighbors would buy a barrel of oysters, dump them out on the floor of their tobacco shed, cover them with damp feed bags to keep them cool, then sell them to anyone who wanted them.