In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries great dishes of fried oysters with slices of lemon used to be served. Nowadays they are useful as a savoury, when two per person, served on a strip of toast, are enough. They make an elegant starting course, when three or four per person should be served on a small plate, with two small rolls of bacon, three triangles of fried bread, a slice of lemon and a sprinkling of chopped parsley.