Consider the Oyster

In Consider the Oyster, M.F.K. Fisher says:

"Then an oyster will taste like what the taster expects, which of course depends entirely on the taster. Myself, since I was seventeen I have expected all oysters to be delicious, and with few exceptions they have been. In the same way, some people wait, if they manage to swallow these shell-fish at all, to gag more or less violently. And they gag."

I gratefully, rapturously, enthusiastically fall into the former category, though I only started eating raw oysters a few years ago. My maternal grandfather (bless his soul) passed away after ingesting parasites in raw fish, so my mother and her siblings all have an understandable aversion to raw flesh. But when I was a freshman in college, my cousin Lynda splurged and took me to a sushi place in Rockridge where I experienced raw fish for the first time. I can't say that I took to it immediately, as I had been conditioned for my whole life to think of sushi consumption as a flirtation with death and illness. But once my raw fish cherry was popped, sushi became a gateway drug that led to heart-pounding adventures with beef tartares, raw egg batters, lime-cured ceviches, pinkish pork tenderloins, and eventually, the glorious oyster.

If you've never had an oyster, I don't think anyone could describe the experience better than M.F.K. Fisher has, so I encourage you to read about oysters in her words.

I gave oysters plenty of consideration tonight over dinner with my dear friend Dottie at the Grand Central Oyster Bar, a New York treasure. It has become our special date place, and the pleasure of slurp-and-chomping a dozen briny creatures down is intensified when you're with someone who shares enthusiasm for oysters. We always sit in the warm, festive Saloon area at one of the red checkered cloth covered tables, settling our stomachs with a warm bowl of their thick, starchy New England Clam Chowder. Then the oysters come on their sparkly beds of ice and kelp, and we attack.

I'm no purist when it comes to the oyster -- I love 'em stewed, I love 'em fried, and boy, do I love 'em raw. With raw oysters, I tend to go crazy with the condiments. I start with a squirt of lemon, then I add plenty of horseradish and tabasco to the cocktail sauce and dab a little of the red mixture on the oyster, and finally I anoint it all with some mignonette. When Doug and I went to Blue Ribbon, they had an additional condiment, some salsa verde kind of thing with peppers and onion or shallots, which I happily dabbed on as well. I'm always overwhelmed by the GCOB's extensive selection of oysters, so I thought it would be fun to share my descriptions and ratings of the specimens we chose tonight, for your future reference and mine. A note: Dottie won't eat oysters from Long Island -- she prefers oysters from cleaner, colder waters, and since I'm trying to be just like Dottie, I don't either. Here were our picks for tonight's plate:

Chedabucto (Nova Scotia) -- Medium size, sweet shallow flesh with gentle salinity. Gray oblong pearly shell. Dottie's favorite. ****

Kumamoto (Oregon) -- Always bite-size in a small scalloped gray and white cup. Buttery sweet flesh with gentle salinity. My all time favorite oyster. ****

Imperial Eagle Creek (British Columbia) -- My wild card pick. On the small side but bigger than the Kumamoto in a frilly, deep white shell. Fleshy and sweet with medium salinity. Pretty good. ***

Malpeque (Prince Edward Island) -- Medium size, more slurpy than other oysters. Shallow gray shell with thin flesh. Assertive salinity. Nice texture, but saltier than the Malpeques I had at Blue Ribbon. Dottie didn't like this one, but I would give Malpeques another chance. ***

Raspberry Point (Prince Edward Island) -- Medium size, pretty much the same as the Malpeques but considerably saltier. Dottie didn't like this one so much either. **

Windy Bay (Alaska) -- Dottie thought that since these were in colder waters, they'd be smaller, but they were the largest oyster we ordered. A good four inches of oyster, quite fleshy, with a creamy sweetness and medium salinity. It had a little sea urchin-like flavor. I prefer my oysters to be single bites, so I'll give this one **.

Newport Cup (Rhode Island) -- Dottie's wild card pick. Medium large in a deep cup. Interesting mineral sweetness, not metallic. Quite fleshy with medium salinity. ***

I love me some oysters. I hope to eat more before the months with "R" in them come to an end, so I'll amend this guide as I assess more of them. Happy slurping!

****

From Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway:

Dianne Wiest's character to John Cusack's character: "You stand on the brink of greatness. The world will open to you like an oyster. No...not like an oyster. The world will open to you like a magnificent vagina!"