HEY! THE "R" MONTHS ARE BACK!
Now that we are once again in the “R” months, and Covid has kept us from bringing our customers our annual Oyster Fest, I thought it might be fun to review the oyster literature out there.
For those of you who dare put on the reinforced oyster glove and wield the oyster knife, all it takes is a couple dozen fresh oysters from your favorite fish market, some crusty French bread, and a couple selected chilled bottles of Sancerre, Chablis, Pouilly-Fuisse, Muscadet, or Picpoul de Pinet, and your life will go from ordinary to spectacular with a few skillful turns of the knife.
While you’re waiting, savor these nuggets:
“Oysters, expensive flat faintly coppery marennes, not the familiar, deep, inexpensive portugaises, and a bottle of Pouilly-Fuissé”.--Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast (1957)
“As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans.”—Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast (1957)
“Oysters are the most tender and delicate of all seafoods. They stay in bed all day and night. They never work or take exercise, are stupendous drinkers, and wait for their meals to come to them.”
Hector Bolitho—The Glorious Oyster (1960)
“Before I was born my mother was in great agony of spirit and in a tragic situation. She could take no food except iced oysters and champagne. If people ask me when I began to dance, I reply ‘In my mother’s womb, probably as a result of the oysters and champagne.’” ---Attributed to Isadora Duncan
"He was a bold man that first ate an oyster." —Jonathan Swift
The oyster's a confusing suitor;
It's masc., and fem., And even neuter.
But whether husband, Pal, or wife,
It leads a soothing Sort of life.
I'd like to be An oyster, say,
In August, June, July, or May.
—Ogden Nash
