Oysters Rockefeller

Oysters Rockefeller is a famous oyster dish created at the New Orleans institution Antoine's. Antoine's was founded in 1840 by Antoine Alciatore, who moved to New Orleans after two frustrating years in New York to open a restaurant of his own. The dish was named Oysters Rockefeller after John D. Rockefeller, the richest American at the time. Jules Alciatore, Antoine's son, developed Oysters Rockefeller based on another of his recipes in the face of a shortage of French snails and diners' declining taste for them, substituting oysters for snails. Antoine's has been serving the original recipe dish since 1899. Oysters Rockefeller has been described as a combination of oysters, parsley, and parmesan cheese, topped with a rich sauce of butter, herbs and breadcrumbs.

Though many New Orleans restaurants serve dishes purporting to be Oysters Rockefeller, Antoine's claims that no other restaurant has been able to successfully duplicate the recipe. Knock-off versions of the dish have proliferated in New Orleans, developed to capitalize on the fame of Antoine's signature dish, but because the recipe for Oysters Rockefeller was passed down from the creator, Jules Alciatore of Antoine's to his children, and has apparently never left the family's hands, competing restaurants have had to formulate their own recipes. (Alton Brown of The Food Network series Good Eats states in the episode titled "Shell Game" that Jules Alciatore took the original recipe with him to the grave, and any version of the recipe that exists today is only an assumption, based on descriptions of the original dish.) While many have achieved the trademark green color of the original — a color easily attainable by using spinach in the recipe — it is said that few get the flavor of Antoine's recipe right; furthermore, Antoine's chefs have repeatedly denied that the authentic recipe contains spinach. A 1986 analysis by William Poundstone in Bigger Secrets indicated that the primary ingredients were parsley, olive oil, and capers.

Malcolm Hebert, native Louisianan, cookbook author and wine and food editor, also indicates the original recipe did not have spinach and he gives a slightly different version and adds the all-important ingredient Herbsaint (or substitute Pernod). Absinthe was banned in the U.S. from 1915 to 2007. Pernod and Herbsaint where anise flavored drinks developed to replace absinthe. Pernod was first made in 1920 in France and Herbsaint in the U.S. in 1935 (after Prohibition). It is not possible that either Pernod or Herbsaint was in the original 1899 recipe, presumably absinthe was used.