There’ll be an R in the month until next April, which for aficionados of oysters can only mean one thing: these delicacies will be available for the next seven months. Jonathan Swift is often quoted as having said, “He was a bold man that first ate an oyster”, and many of us would rather chew the head off a dead rat than let these glutinous, muscly, sea water-scented little shellfish anywhere near our dinner plate, but some view them as a delicacy on a par with caviar and champagne. Slurped straight off the half shell, either just as they are or enlivened with a dash of Tabasco or lemon juice, or cooked in a fish stew or a steak and kidney pie, and washed down with a pint of creamy Guinness or a glass of white wine or champagne, the oyster occupies a unique place in European, American and Asian cuisine.
In the past, and for a number of centuries, oysters were a staple foodstuff. So many of them were eaten by working people in many of the cities that grew so rapidly during the nineteenth century—Dublin and London, for example—that oyster beds became seriously depleted, which in turn led to the rarity value that is a prerequisite for any luxury food. Oysters were used to stuff chickens and turkeys (and sometimes inserted under the skin to give extra flavour ), in fish and meat stews, or fried as an accompaniment to a main course. In Mrs Beeton’s time you could buy a half a dozen for fourpence, and in towns and cities near the sea they could be bought from stalls that were the equivalent of modern-day fish and chip shops or burger bars.
Oysters naturally live in areas of shallow sea water with a gradually sloping sea bed. This habitat makes them relatively easy to farm. They can be grown in natural beds along the seashore, by adding “seed” oysters to the pre-existing population: when the oysters have matured they can be gathered by hand, with rakes or by dredging. Alternatively, they can be grown in large nets or bags which are suspended just above the sea floor. Oyster farming is big business now, and while China and France lead the world in oyster production, Ireland has a sizeable and growing oyster industry.
Their most astonishing physical attribute is that they change sex every time they spawn—which may partly account for their reputation as an aphrodisiac. They also contain a large amount of zinc, which is involved in producing testosterone, and certain amino acids, which trigger the production of certain sex hormones. So perhaps this is one myth that has some basis in scientific fact.
String of pearls
If you’re not keen on eating oysters you might find pearls slightly more appealing—and perhaps more of an aphrodisiac. According to the old theory, a pearl is formed when a piece of grit or sand gets stuck in an oyster’s shell and it secretes the material from the inside of its shell—nacre, or mother-of-pearl—that eventually forms the pearl in order to protect itself from the grit. Sadly this is one of those myths that doesn’t stand up to inspection. Oysters—and many other shellfish—have a constant stream of water and sand flowing through their shells, so they’re perfectly well able to cope with a bit of grit. The nacre is in fact produced to protect the oyster from more sinister attacks—from parasites that have bored through the shell from the outside, which it can’t get rid of by washing them through the shell in the normal way.
