Ode to the Oyster

Writing about oysters without mentioning M.F.K. Fisher is like going skiing without the skis. You can slip around all over the place, and even ride down the hill on your nylon-ski-pants-covered bottom, but you're watching everyone else whiz past with their perfectly parallel pieces of wood. Without a little M.F.K, a writer ends up trying to get at the taste of an oyster, but doesn't quite get there.

Okay, I must be honest. I have never read Consider the Oyster. It's on my to-do list. And admittedly, there are plenty of other writers who have attempted descriptions of the elusive oyster just as thoroughly as Fisher. And yet there is something about her that appeals to my dreamy reverie, the part of me that waxes poetic about foods and their preparation. She is a prose-poet of food.


I have found that many people are squeamish about oysters. They don't look like something that would go in your mouth. They look more like something that should be complained about to your server if found in your soup. To eat them right out of the shell is brave, to slurp them right out of the shell even braver (and an act I have yet to experience--my oyster skills are young yet).

Neither of my roommates eat them. J tried them the day before Thanksgiving, when we were making grilled cheeses with bread from Essential Baking Company and red-pepper tomato soup and shucking oysters while the sandwiches were on the stove. Perhaps not the greatest of combinations, but we bought some Kumamotos from the market and they were too tempting to allow to go bad. J didn't like them, even with the mignonette. It is a texture thing, I suppose. Fried oysters are more conducive to texture-eaters, people who base much of their pleasure or lack thereof on a food's mouth feel. I chew my oysters, because swallowing whole is cheating. You don't taste the oyster, instead you get a little of whatever sauce you may have doused it in before the whole thing goes sliding down your throat.


I missed the opportunity for shots of the Kumamotos. My dad and I ate them up. A few weeks back I bought some Olympia oysters from Oyster Bill at the U-District market. Oyster Bill delivers to Seattle restaurants, and is co-author of the book The Joy of Oysters. He looked like he stepped right off the boat; a neatly trimmed white beard almost hides a genuine smile, and his waterproof clothing gave him the look of a fisherman. And Oyster Bill knows his oysters. He had some large Pacifics (photo left), which I found to be a little too large for eating raw, as well as a few others, but the ones that struck me were the Olympias. Olympia oysters (photo below) are the only type indigenous to the Pacific Northwest. All the others were brought from Japan and breed very well here, according to Oyster Bill, and have very brittle shells but delightfully briny interiors.





I had to buy the Olympias, even though they weren't the cheapest choice. They were well worth it. I had no trouble opening their dainty little shells and slurping down their liquor. The mignonette was hardly necessary.

Mignonette is a combination of 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar, the juice of two lemons (though I found one to be enough), 2 teaspoons of finely minced shallots, lots of black pepper and (optional) fresh tarragon. I obtained the recipe from a food writer friend of mine and fellow oyster-lover. I can hardly eat oysters without this stuff now. It's that good. It adds a subtle acidic flavor without overpowering the gentle briny citrus of the oysters.


Rowan Jacobsen (see link below) describes oysters as if he is tasting wine. This is a less familiar method of eating oysters for me, but a lovely read nonetheless. His description of the oyster's umami is a bit much for me, but I do find interest in his description of oyster seasons. Earlier this fall, when I tried the large Pacifics for the fist time, I found them milky and strangely mushy. They tasted fine, but I could hardly choke them down, especially when I discovered that this was a sign of spawning oysters. I decided I would research oyster seasons before I bought them next time. So far that has worked well. In general, oysters are best in the fall and winter, when they have stored up food to live on during the cold months, much like a hibernating mammal.

I would like to attempt to fry my own oysters, or steam them, or do something with them other than eat them raw. I happen to like eating them raw, so I have a feeling most of them would end up in my mouth before they even get coated with a fry mixture. I'll buy extra to accommodate my lack of self-restraint.

More about Oysters:

The best online source I have found for oysters is on chow.com. It is an excerpt from Rowan Jacobsen's book The Geography of Oysters: A Connoisseur's Guide to Eating Oysters in North America. The excerpt is beautifully written and informative, and where I obtained some of my information for this entry.

The Wikipedia entry on oysters. Includes info on preparation and storage, plus a bit of history.

A Global Gourmet bit on oysters. Includes recipes and a little information.