Why do people eat oysters on the half shell?
I never have, but from what I understand you don’t chew them…you can’t chew them because they’re like rubber. So you’re supposed to just let it slide down your throat like a big old hocker? You wouldn’t even taste it, would you? It seems utterly GROSS!
So why do people eat them? Are they just showing off?
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Because they are delicious. Your loss. I consider the fast food that you are always eating gross.
But how can you taste them if they just slide down your throat?
I’ve eaten the tinned oysters on saltine crackers. I love those, but I’ve never understood the allure of raw oysters that you can’t chew.
They pass over your tongue and taste buds. They taste lightly like the sea and oyster, and the flesh is very delicate.
Some people just like the taste of those salty little boogers sliding down their throats. It perplexes me as well, but people have their tastes.
I think I’d end up just reflexively gagging.
@Dutchess_III At my annual family Christmas party, they roast oysters by the bushel and suck them down like savages. It is such a disgusting event to watch.
LOL! At least they cook them before they slurp them down!
But if I may add insight, the oysters usually have a bit of liquid in them. The saltiness of the liquid is probably why people eat them like that.
I took a food science class a while back. The professor said there is only one food he does not eat – oysters. He went on to explain that the way oysters nourish themselves means that they are full of all kinds of bad stuff that does not cook out.
I would think people eat oysters on the half shell because they enjoy the flavor and aren’t fully aware of how dangerous consuming them can be.
At one of President Carter’s inauguration parties they had men shucking raw oysters and placing them on a bed of ice as quickly as they could pop the shells. Always an adventurous/thrifty eater, I took the occasion to swaller one.
I have always after been able to state truthfully, “Yes, I have tried them and they was as much like swallowing a giant glob of sinus mucus as believed they would be.”
That’s what it seems like it would be like to me, too.
How did it taste?
@LilCosmo I just read that oysters just suck in water and get plankton that way, which is what they eat. How is that dangerous?
Much like fish snot, @Dutchess_III, one would imagine. (I mean to say, I have never sucked fish snot to be able to verify that precisely.)
LOLL!! Fish snot, want not!
@Dutchess_III I don’t remember, you’ll have to ask my food science teacher. One would assume that the plankton is filled with pollutants that are not good for people to ingest.
But plankton is #1 on the animal food chain. Without them, the whole ecosystem would collapse. I guess I don’t understand why plankton would have any more pollutants in them than any other animal.
Back when I lived in Paris, oysters were a big deal at holiday meals and enthusiasts raved about the finer points of the different varieties, so I tried to acquire a taste for them. To me, it was very much like what you’d get if you took some sea water and mixed in some unflavored gelatin. Yeah, “sea water jello” pretty much sums up my experience of oysters.The only way I could stomach them was to put some kind of sauce on them (we made a vinegar/shallot sauce that helped them pass). And they weren’t cheap, either.
I believe is might have to do with heavy metals, too, @Dutchess_III. The oysters are Hoovering the ocean floor, and all the heavy metals settle there.
Oh. I hadn’t thought of that. I’ll look further into it.
I don’t eat them straight from the shell, because the idea of grating my teeth on a barnacle terrifies me.
First, I squeeze lemon on all of my oysters, then I take my oyster fork, lift the oyster to my butter cracker, apply horseradish, and pop in the lot.
And yes, I chew, because I’m not a barbarian.
They are freaking delicious.
I don’t care what “doesn’t cook out” because I’m not cooking them. And if you’re not eating 12 dozen every day, you’re not going to get heavy metal poisoning. Sheesh.
I am so craving some tinned oysters and saltines right now!
What’s it like chewing them?
They’re not like rubber. I’ve chewed them, to try it – and you can. I can’t think of what else it might feel like, but I don’t find it unpleasant. But I prefer to just swallow them; certainly you taste it going down.
@Dutchess_III, you should just try it… it’s kind of like tasting The Sea. I don’t just mean that it’s salty… it’s like being able to appreciate the ocean using a different sense than sight or feel.
“Oyster habitat is vital to the health of an estuary, effectively filtering nutrients, fine sediments and toxins from the water column. They support critical fisheries and protected resources, improve water quality and protect shorelines.” http://www.oysterrestoration.com/
Oysters are indiscriminate about what they eat. If it is small enough to get into their systems, they will absorb it, along with the plankton. Like other shellfish, they are bottom feeders, and so tend to absorb more toxins as a result. Farmed fish or shellfish of any type contain more toxins than ones caught in the wild, because there is a higher percentage of urea and toxins in the water. When you eat an oyster, you’re also eating its poo.
This is why I don’t eat shellfish or farmed fish of any type- they do have a higher percentage of toxins in their systems than wild caught fish. Also cold water fish have fewer toxins than warm water fish.
There ya go, @Dutchess_III. Have you a fresh oyster, thinking about fish snot and oyster poo!
Surely you have a market with a seafood case, @Dutchess_III? I’m between 2 towns, and each has one.
Because large, slimy bugs are too difficult to catch and present on a bed of ice?
@glacial Yes. I’m a native New Englander. I grew up around raw bars. Oysters always reminded me of big, gooey creatures, sort of like garden slugs.
@glacial Bug-like enough for me, thank you very much. :-)
(I’m a vegan, so many foods have an “Ew!” effect on me.)
It was a pretty hilarious post, nevertheless, @SadieMartinPaul. Literal LOL here.
I did a little searching online and found one article (from Men’s Health Magazine) calling oysters natural filters. That would be a good argument for my food science teacher not eating them.
But all living things “filter” in one way or another, @LilCosmo. Green plants filter carbon dioxide, but we don’t stop eating lettuce and spinach. Well, not lettuce, anyway.
But I believe the point is, @Dutchess_III, that they are water based bottom filters. It’s akin to eating stuff living in the smog layer.
Because I can’t drink them in pepper vodka with cocktail sauce all the time.
@Dutchess_III Exactly. And it isn’t as though oysters are on the menu every day, three times a day. It’s a rare treat.
Oh, crap. @SecondHandStoke just made me crave a (fish snot) (oyster poo) raw oyster. That sounds so flipping awesome!
Or in sake with a dab of wasabi.
@Dutchess_III They are very definitely not like rubber! One of my most special memories involves the eating of oysters, outside on the deck, overlooking the ocean and in excellent company.
@Seek_Kolinahr 12 dozen oysters? About five years ago my mother told me a wonderful story about a friend of my parents, an air steward, who sent them 12 dozen oysters and left them at the airport, they drove out to the airport together one night, collected them, came home, sat up in bed and devoured the whole lot, I love to think of my parents doing that.
Ah Oysters. You either love ‘em or you hate ‘em. Personally, I LOVE oysters. If they’re available on the menu- I’m ordering them. As @Adagio stated, they are not rubbery! Yes, the texture leaves little to be desired for some, but the ocean-y taste of oysters is so nostalgic and delicious to me.
I think, like anything, if you don’t eat tons of them daily, then a few on certain occasions is not going to harm anybody. They’re definitely not worse than eating McDonalds or other fast food crap! For that matter, soooo many people eat salmon because they think salmon is good for you, but if you read or watch documentaries about salmon and how the farmed salmon escape and mate with wild salmon and the antibiotics and parasites (like sea lice) from farmed salmon are found in wild salmon, you’d not be likely to eat salmon again (as I try to avoid that like the plague and snicker when I see people thinking salmon is good for them).
“Fresh” salmon.
Room temperature.
Cut not too thin.
A light olive oil.
Only gonna live once…
I’ve never tried oysters but I don’t like mussels so I suspect I wouldn’t like oysters either.
@SecondHandStoke On a square of pumpernickel, with a little raw onion and some capers. Mmm.
@downtide I don’t care for mussels, either, but then I’ve only had them steamed. They kind of have the texture of pencil erasers.
How big are they? The ones I get that are tinned, I can fit 1 or 2 on a saltine cracker. Are raw oysters bigger than that?
@glacial
Are you thinking lox?
‘Cause I’m thinking raw.
Isn’t a lox a Dr. Suess thing?
^ I think cooking is the worst thing that ever happened to seafood.
Get some truly fresh scallops.
A little lemon squeeze.
The best desert you’ve ever had.
I used to go to a Japanese restaurant that served scallop and octopus sashimi.
You won’t believe how delicate the texture and flavor of food can be.
@SecondHandStoke “I think cooking is the worst thing that ever happened to seafood.”
I totally agree!
^Actually I feel that way about many meats.
Pork tenderloin? Mid rare please.
Certain beef? room temperature, the slightest touch of salt, olive oil.
Restaurants that won’t serve my burger unless it’s burned don’t get my business.
Oh, and I have no doubt that they’re very nutritious, too.
@SecondHandStoke Yes. And I usually have a hunk of prosciutto hanging around my kitchen at any given moment. Delish.
^Noms!
My wife and I made a skin on pork roast last night.
Crunchy salted and sugared skin, grey pink in da middle!
Anthony Bourdain once said in an interview that if he had the world’s last tuna he would cut out the fatty belly and eat it no regrets.
I would too.
I don’t get what the big deal about lobster is though.
^ Ohhhhh.
A platform per se.
@downtide in spite of both being shellfish, oysters do not resemble mussels, in texture, taste or appearance, they are quite different, I recommend giving oysters a go, you only live once : ^)
I love both mussels and oysters. Cooked. Mussels steamed in white wine and garlic! MMMMM.
Raw oysters taste great. .for eating raw i like the smallish blue points from long island sound. for frying or in stew I prefer Chesapeake Bay oysters.
I like mussels in white wine and garlic sauce. I pick them out of the shell, then dump the lot over some pasta. Parmesan cheese and crusty bread…heaven.
“Why do people eat oysters on the half shell?”
Because they’re too damned crunchy with the whole shell on!
Duh
The four food groups:
Salt.
Fat.
Carbohydrates.
Alcohol.
Beer has lots of carbs. So you can cut the carbs out of your diet and double up on the beer.
^ True.
But beer as wonderful as it can be is not the only food in the alcohol group.
Can we replace the fruit with wine? And vegetables with potato vodka?
What? Wine is not a fruit? That’s just crazy. Next you’ll be telling me that beer’s not a grain. Let’s be reasonable here.
And how could something named “Rye” not be a grain??
Sea scallop of course.
Cut in half “horizontally.”
Why not have a little kabob? Black olive, bay scallop, green olive, bay scallop, cocktail onion, bay scallop.
In an ice cold vodka martini.
That makes ME thirsty. Screw the bar stools, we’re gonna need chairs with backs!.
I don’t have the slightest idea. I only know I love them and every other type of shellfish.
@ibstubro:
I’m ALL in!
As a bartender I would bitch “It’s a cocktail, not a SALAD!” when people would request undignified quantities of olives.
But this, this has our delicious friends from the SEA!
@Dutchess_III:
Correction:
Any beer worth drinking has lots of carbs.
^ Ha! Three is pushing it, I’m sure, but there are few things in this world better than a Big Damn Olive soaked in Sapphire and dry vermouth.
It’s all about the presentation. I happen to have a huge collection of glass tooth food cocktail picks to. I imagine I could accommodate the Sea scallops by slicing them thin, horizontally, and wrapping the little disk ½ way round each olive and onion as I spear. Shouldn’t there be asparagus here somewhere? This is a salad and a cocktail. I have a wide variety of glasses, glass spoons and glass straws, as well. Pick your poison. The basement’s full of liquor. BYOSF as I’m in the Midwest.
I’m so confused. Are we supposed to be putting oysters in our cocktails and beers now? But what if we don’t want to?
@Seek_Kolinahr:
I’m a Sapphire man myself.
On the rocks, lemon peel rubbed on the glass’s lip.
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