When I think of seafood salad, I envision a lettuce based salad with shrimp or crab. In the 1800s, unless you lived near the coast, seafood was canned. Commercial canned food became available in Maine in the 1840s. Lobster today is a luxury food, but lobster was was a cheap food and extremely popular once available in cans. As late as the 1850s, canned lobster sold for just 11 cents a pound. source

Other fish and seafood was also canned, such as herring, shrimp, anchovies, oysters, salmon, and sardines. Tuna wasn’t commercially canned in the U.S. until 1904.

The following recipes include both canned and fresh fish and seafood.

INFORMATION BELOW COMPILED FROM 1800s COOKBOOKS:

LOBSTER SALAD
Take one cup of chopped celery, five hard boiled eggs coarsely diced, and one large or two small cans of lobster coarsely shredded. Season with salt and a dash of cayenne and mix lightly with fork. For the dressing, take one-half cup vinegar, one teaspoon mustard, one-half teaspoon salt, three tablespoons melted butter, and three level tablespoons of sugar. Cook in a double boiler. When well heated, add the well beaten yolks of four eggs and one whole egg, stirring continuously till thick and smooth. When ready to mix with the salad, thin to a proper consistency with sweet or sour cream. Place salad on lettuce and pour dressing over it.

FISH SALAD
Boil four flounders, or any medium sized fish; when done, take off the skin and pick out the bones, then shred very fine. Then take one tablespoon mixed mustard, one-half cup vinegar, one-half pound butter, add pepper and salt, and mix all well with the fish. Put into shallow pans, set in the oven and bake ten minutes. When cold, put over it a little Worcestershire sauce, and sherry wine.

HAZEL’S HERRING SALAD
Take equal quantities of cold boiled potatoes and herring and two or three small onions. Cut potatoes in cubes, slice onions, and remove bones from the herring and cut in small pieces. Mix together gently, and let stand on ice till ready to serve. Cover with sweet cream and season with salt and pepper.

ITALIAN SARDINE SALAD
Take four sardines, three large potatoes, three eggs, seasoning, four anchovies, one-half cup of lima beans cooked, and plenty of oil and vinegar. Bake the potatoes, peel them, and set them aside to cool. Boil the eggs hard. Slice the potatoes into a bowl and add the beans. Skin and bone the sardines and anchovies, break into bits, and mix them with the vegetables. Put the yolks of two of the eggs into a bowl, add a pinch each of mustard and salt and enough oil to make a smooth cream. Add one third as much vinegar as oil. Pour this dressing over the vegetables and add the shredded whites of the eggs. Garnish with the whole egg cut in slices and a few stoned olives.

ANCHOVIE BONNES-BOUCHES
Fillet some anchovies, cut them into thin strips, and put them on a dish with some shredded lettuce leaves, small radishes, some capers, thin slices of lemon and chopped parsley. Arrange all tastefully, season with lemon juice mixed with salad oil, garnish with stoned olives and the yolks and the whites of hard boiled eggs.

SALMON SALAD
Open a can of salmon, break into large pieces, remove the bones, skin, and fat, and lay on a plate. Slice two tomatoes and mince finely a few small cucumber pickles. Mix the tomatoes with the pickle and put around the salmon, with a little on top. Cover with a mayonnaise, to which chopped pickles and capers have been added, and garnish with lettuce and parsley.

CRAB SALAD
Boil three dozen hard-shell crabs twenty-five minutes. Drain and let them cool gradually. Remove the upper shell and the tail, break the remainder apart and pick out the meat carefully. The large claws should not be forgotten, for they contain a dainty morsel, and the creamy fat attached to the upper shell should not be overlooked. Line a salad bowl with the small white leaves of two heads of lettuce, add the crab meat, pour over it a mayonnaise, garnish with crab claws, hard-boiled eggs and little mounds of cress leaves, which may be mixed with the salad when served.

FRESH OYSTER SALAD
Drain the liquor from a quart of fresh oysters. Put them in hot vinegar enough to cover them. Place over the fire and let them remain until plump, but not cooked. Then drop them immediately in cold water and drain. Mix with them two pickled cucumbers cut fine, also a quart of celery cut in dice pieces, and some seasoning of salt and pepper. Mix all well together, tossing up with a silver fork. Pour over the whole a mayonnaise dressing. Garnish with celery tips and slices of hard-boiled eggs arranged tastefully.

CHEESE [SHRIMP] SALAD, OR MOCK CRAB
1⁄2 lb. pickled shrimps
1⁄4 lb. good old cheese
1 tablespoon salad oil
1⁄2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoonful white sugar
1 teaspoonful made mustard
4 tablespoonfuls celery or onion vinegar

Mince the shrimps and grate the cheese. Work into the latter, a little at a time, the various condiments enumerated above, the vinegar last. Let all stand together ten minutes before adding the shrimps. When this is done, stir well for a minute and a half and serve in a glass dish, garnished with lemon, or (if you can get one) in a clean crab-shell.

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Do You Have Any Favorite Seafood Salads? Please Leave a Comment Below.

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