Oysters

"I want my food dead. Not sick, not dying, dead." Oscar Wilde

"He was a bold man that first ate an oyster." Jonathan Swift

I cannot come at oysters. I feel really queasy about eating something that is alive. Appalled and disgusted really. Which I know is hypocritical because (a) there are lots of cooked oyster dishes, and (b) I eat plenty of other things that have been alive just a short time before - and who knows sometimes I may have eaten some shellfish that were alive when they were cooked. Eating anything animal that has been alive is probably not worth dwelling upon and may mean that one day I shall end up a vegetarian. In the meantime - oysters - it's barbaric. A step too far. Like wichety grubs.

So why am I writing about oysters? Well initially this is an 'inspiration from art' post. My painting of the day is the above, by Jan Steen entitled, obviously enough - Girl Eating Oysters. I'm guessing hers are raw - or almost and that she is simply sprinkling them with salt before eating. Though why you would sprinkle something which is apparently salty - seeing as how it comes from the sea - I don't know. But all the gourmet connoisseurs who love the things really think the best way to eat them is alive and fresh from the sea with nothing more than maybe a drop of lemon juice, like the couple below. And you have to chew them too! Ugh! If the shell is open before it is shucked, it's dead and already going off they say.

People wax lyrical about oysters. The following is typical.

"If you don't love life you can't enjoy an oyster; there is a shock of freshness to it and intimations of the ages of man, some piercing intuition of the sea and all its weeds and breezes. [They] shiver you for a split second." Eleanor Clark

They seem to imply there is something almost primeval about it. And indeed they have been eaten copiously for a very long time. Prehistoric garbage tips show oyster shells. The Romans, were famous for eating them. And they imported vast numbers from the Essex river estuaries around Colchester.

They grew in such abundance that they actually eventually became known as the food of the poor.

"Poverty and oysters always seem to go together."

Charles Dickens

In the London streets carts like this one, selling oysters were a common sight in the nineteenth century. Inevitably though they were eaten in such abundance that the native English species almost died out. Apparently, thanks to an embargo on fishing them, they are coming back, and also, of course they are being farmed. In the south of France oysters are grown in the lagoons behind the coast and around the world they have proved to be a very suitable candidate for aquaculture. And did you know that oysters actually clean the seawater? So we should be growing more to help solve the problem of sea pollution.

They are also supposed to be an aphrodisiac, although there is no scientific substance to this other than that they are high in zinc. Marco Pierre White jumped on to this particular bandwagon though with (to me) a rather revolting looking dish called Oysters with tagliatelle and caviar - well it's from Jill Dupleix's book and she has used angel hair pasta rather than tagliatelle but it's the same dish. I gather it's world famous. And there are other world famous dishes too - Rockefeller - because it's rich, and Kilpatrick - with bacon - are the most famous.

"Casanova used to eat at least fifty oysters a day for breakfast before he even looked for anyone to seduce." Jill Dupleix

A few years ago it was seen as a luxury food, and it still sort of retains that image, but they are now within almost everyone's price range I would think - not that I have looked to see how much they do cost. But you can get them in the supermarket and the market. They haven't quite got back to being the food of the poor though.

The other luxury associated oyster product though is pearls. And I do like pearls. In fact I think they might be my birthstone. But poor oyster - the beautiful thing that is a pearl is also a product of disaster for the oyster. Almost a sort of cancer. Something it builds around an irritant like a grain of sand. Nowadays they farm those too of course. But people still dive for the real ones at great personal risk. So once again you have a juxtaposition of danger and beauty.

"I've long believed that good food, good eating, is all about risk. Whether we're talking about unpasteurized Stilton, raw oysters or working for organized crime 'associates,' food, for me, has always been an adventure" Anthony Bourdain

Again this is not a concept I am happy with. But then I am also one of the world's great cowards. Not a risk taker.

Then there's that phrase about the world being one's oyster - apparently one of Shakespeare's from The Merry Wives of Windsor.

"Why, then the world ’s mine oyster, Which I with sword will open." William Shakespeare

What does it mean though? Well according to English Language and Usage:

"The original implication of the phrase is that Pistol is going to use violent means (sword) to steal his fortune (the pearl one finds in an oyster). We inherit the phrase, absent its original violent connotation, to mean that the world is ours to enjoy."

I don't suppose I have told you anything you didn't already know but there they were looking at me again in Jan Steen's painting, complete with a girl with a come hither smile. In some ways they are very beautiful. The colours are delicate and wishful, the convolutions of the shell are of the earth and the sea - ancient. But no I don't like them. I once ate a smoked oyster by mistake. It was truly revolting.