In Praise of the Oyster

Oysters, again, I hear you moan. Yes, best beloveds, I do keep an eye on my back catalogue. Yes, I know I wrote about the Stranraer Oyster Festival, and followed up with some bivalve recipes. But while I would never concede my prose to be dull, these were largely factual affairs. So what has brought on today's tribute?

With the exception of books and booze, shopping is most definitely not my thing. If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly is definitely my motto here. When it comes to clothes, two attempts maximum. A third emporium will not attract me in: the game will be abandoned there and then. But on Saturday success awaited for each and every goal, and that inside an hour and a half. Driven by smugness and self satisfaction, I decided a spot of lunch was justified. The occasional treat of calorie laden loveliness that is a plate of good fish and chips called. And so I found myself ensconced in a comfortable corner of the palace of delights that is Whigham's Wine Cellars, in Edinburgh's West End.

Then inspiration struck. One treat good: two treats better. Three oysters for starters. Slap bang in the middle of what has been one of their best seasons in years. How were they? You'll have to wait. Consider what others before us have thought.

He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.

Objectively, it's impossible to disagree with Jonathan Swift. Even the greatest fans have to agree that it's not a thing of beauty. Add to that the fact that early consumers probably smashed them open, risking horrible injury from shell shards. But now you know how to shuck your own, courtesy of this column. Alternatively seek out an expert. Bentleys in London is a wonderful place for many reasons if your bank account is flush. And it's home to Federico Fiorillo who won this year's World Oyster Shucking Championship. Well he does open 1000 a day down in Piccadilly. Tasting some expertly opened may make you feel a bit like Anthony Bourdain.

What is an oyster if not the perfect food? … It provides its own sauce … It appears on your plate as God created it: raw, unadorned … It is food at its most primeval and glorious, untouched by time or man … And I blame my first oyster … for everything I did after: my decision to become a chef, my thrill-seeking …

Probably the finest book ever penned on the subject is Consider the Oyster, by one of our heroes, M F K Fisher. Described by John Updike as poet of the appetites, Mrs Fisher surpasses herself in this short volume. Its dozen chapters include Love and Death Among the Molluscs, A Lusty Bit of Nourishment, and Pearls Are Not Good to Eat. She describes their curious hermaphrodite qualities, morphing from a rampaging male into a female capable of laying several hundred million eggs. She also explains, knowingly, why it's not ideal to eat oysters in months lacking an R, the spawning season. It's not that they'll make you ill, she writes, It's just that, all oysters, like all men, are somewhat weaker after they have done their best at reproducing.

But in Whighams in November, three Loch Fyne beauties are placed in front of me, served simply on a bed of ice with a wedge of lemon. There is a bowl of mignonette, that combo of shallot and vinegar for those who care for that sort of thing. I do not. I apply a bivalve puckering squeeze of citrus, and a single drop of Tabasco.

Then a pause to consider this small plate of perfection. Had I been a religious man I might have said a brief Grace. Chef, like anyone with respect for his produce, has carefully detached them from the little muscle on the lower shell and, of course, has preserved all the liquor. The first slurp, with care not to lose a drop. There is that initial, refreshing, ice cold tang of the sea, followed by the creamy meatiness released by a brief chew. (I don't understand why you would swallow them whole.) Then a suitable period to savour the glorious after taste, one which lingers in the mouth as surely as any fine wine.

Then repeated twice more. I wish I'd ordered six.

My inadequate tribute to the oyster. Amen.

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