Hangtown Fry (eggs & Oysters)

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Dust oysters in flour and fry until golden in melted butter in a medium frying pan.

Blend together eggs, cream and salt; pour over oysters.

Reduce heat to low and cover.

Serve when eggs are set. Top with crisp cooked bacon.

Chef's Note & Story

This recipe is taken from THE SHOALWATER COOKBOOK: Incredible edibles from the novels Just Past Oysterville and Shoalwater Voices, by Perry P. Perkins

In 1849, a prospector rushed into the saloon of the El Dorado Hotel announcing that right there in town, along the banks of Hangtown Creek, he had struck it rich. Untying his leather poke and spilling its shining contents of gold dust and nuggets. Turning to the bartender he loudly demanded, “I want you to cook me up the finest and most expensive meal in the house.”

The Bartender called to the cook who said, “The most expensive things on the menu are eggs, bacon and oysters. Take your choice. I can cook you anything you want, but it will cost you more than just a pinch of that gold dust you have there.”

“Scramble me up a whole mess of eggs and oysters,” the prospector said, “throw in some bacon, and serve ‘em up. I’m starving!” The cook did just that, and thus the Hangtown Fry was invented.

It consists of fried breaded oysters, eggs, and fried bacon, cooked together like an omelet. In the gold-mining camps of the late 1800s, it became a one-skillet meal for hungry miners who struck it rich and had plenty of gold to spend. Live oysters would be brought to the gold fields in barrels of seawater from as far away as Shoalwater Bay on the Washington Coast.

Such a meal cost approximately six bucks. As a dollar had the equivalent buying power of around thirty dollars today, this was a hundred-and-eighty dollar breakfast. The recipe swept the entire Northwest Territory, from California to Seattle, in the mid-1800s.

A few drinks and a Hangtown Fry were considered a gentleman’s evening.