Jane Grigson's Fish Book - Jane Grigson [124]
Beyond the simple choice that I have described, there is, as you might expect, a world of knowledge and expertise, drama and emotion (as for instance when some disease, such as bonamia, takes out famous oyster beds). My own passion for oysters began when my husband gave me a copy of The Oysters of Loqmariaquer by Eleanor Clark. She describes her own first acquaintance with oysters during a long stay in Brittany, and weaves in much oyster history and many anecdotes. She is poet enough to attempt a description of the oyster’s special delight: ‘Music or the colour of the sea are easier to describe than the taste of one of these Armoricaines, which has been lifted, turned, rebedded, taught to close its mouth while travelling, culled, sorted, kept a while in a rest home or “basin” between each change of domicile… It is briny first of all, and not in the sense of brine in a barrel, for the preservation of something; there is a shock of freshness to it… You are eating the sea, only the sensation of a gulp of sea water had been wafted out of it by some sorcery.’
OYSTERS ON THE HALF-SHELL
The best way with fine oysters is to eat them raw. But first you have to open them (don’t ask the fishmonger to do this for you, or the precious liquor will be lost on the way home). You may never break the records of a professional oyster opener – one maître écailler reckoned he had opened 200 dozen oysters a day for forty-three years – but it is easy to acquire the skill necessary for the few dozen you are likely to buy.
The main thing is to wrap your left hand in a clean tea towel, before picking up the oyster so that it lies in the palm of your hand. The flat side should be on top. Slip a short, wide-bladed kitchen knife under the hinge and push it into the oyster. Press the middle fingers of your left hand on the shell, and with the right hand jerk the knife up slightly. The two shells will soon be forced apart, and you can finish freeing the oyster from its base. At first this is a messy, sodden business, and I find it essential to revive myself with the first two oysters (in France our fishmonger always slips in three or four extra. which I regard as the cook’s perquisite). Soon, though, you will complete the operation swiftly and neatly, and be able to lay the deeper shell on the dish with oyster and liquor complete.
To serve oysters the classic way, put crushed ice on to the plates, and then if possible a layer of seaweed as it sets off the oysters so well. Arrange the oysters in a circle, pointed end inwards, and put half a lemon in the centre. About 15 minutes on ice is enough to chill the oyster without overdoing it.
All you need now is brown bread, or rye bread and butter, some lemon juice, cayenne pepper or wine vinegar with a little chopped shallot in it, and a bottle of dry white wine. ‘Chablis was and remains the accepted wine to go with oysters,’ said Edmund Penning-Rowsell in an article in Country Life, ‘although to my mind these are too strong for the delicate, very dry wines of Chablis. Muscadet from near the mouth of the Loire is probably a better and less expensive choice, and if the seawater flavour gets into the wine, no great harm is done to that lesser, often rather acid, Breton favourite.’ There are many people, and not just Irishmen, who say that Guinness is even better with oysters.
If a dozen oysters for each person is out of the question, you can serve eight or even six. But when you are down to this kind of quantity, a large dish of mixed seafood on ice is a more attractive way of presenting oysters. On our way to Touraine we sometimes stop the night at Mont St Michel, where this kind of hors d’oeuvre forms a regular part of the menu. The arrangement is simple but effective. Dark seaweed trails over a bed of ice, and contrasts with a large red crab, the orange of mussels in their black and pearly shells, with the shrimps and winkles and