5
EATING AN OYSTER (FIRST, OPEN IT)
It is after 3 p.m., and Edward and I are up to the fabulous apple tart and down to our last sip of wine when two French girls poke their heads in the door of Huîtrerie Régis and ask, “What kind of oysters do you have?” Alain, the oyster shucker, mentions the eight varieties they have that day. “No Gillardeau?” they ask, mentioning a quality type and producer. “No, the same… or better,” he says. True. They ask if they can have lunch. “No,” he says in French, “too late.” I look at him, amused, as I’ve seen him work well past 4 p.m. on Sunday afternoons, but he volunteers: “You could not please these two anyway. Trying to impress with the one name they know. I bet they would not know the difference between fines de claires and spéciales.” I got it: they had offended him, suggesting his oysters were not as good as Gillardeau, so his ego and pride asserted itself and he reacted not like a snob but like a wounded child. C’est la vie.
Here’s the difference.
TYPES AND SIZES
About 50 percent of all oysters grown and served in France come from the Marennes-Oléron basin, what might be called France’s oyster basket, or bourriche. And about half of all the oysters consumed in France are eaten over a month of year-end holidays.
There is no place on earth, it appears to me, that regulates, inspects, classifies, and details food and wine products more than France, a world capital for bureaucracy, sometimes to the good of the consumer. There are only four types of cupped oysters (again, known in the market as huître creuse or simply creuse) certified in France:
1. Fine de claire
2. Fine de claire verte
3. Spéciale de claire
4. Pousse en claire
N. B. Belons are a fifth type of classified oyster, but, as noted earlier, they are flat oysters and come mostly from Brittany. C’est tout. Five types of oysters on the menu, but thousands of different tastes resulting from the locations in which they are raised and finished by hundreds of producers.
Fine de claire and Fine de claire verte (green): These two types are similar, though the green are relatively rare. Harvested in winter, the fines de claires vertes take their color from the blue-green seaweed in the claires (basins) where the oysters are matured. Both types spend one or two months (twenty-eight days minimum) finishing in a claire. Three kilos of these oysters (about twenty oysters) are permitted per square meter of claire, where they breathe and filter through their gills about two liters of seawater an hour, or as much as twenty-five gallons a day, picking up the particular characteristics of their terroir, their pond and its nutrients and microenvironment. They have a relatively soft, not-so-fleshy consistency (the green can sometimes be a tad firmer), along with an attractive marine aroma and a balanced and distinctive flavor. The green can also be a bit sweeter and bear the “red label” seal of regulated quality.
Spéciale de claire: These are individually preselected by eye and hand for having round shells with a deeper cavity capable of housing a fleshier body. They generally spend two to four months growing in their ponds in more rarefied company of only about ten companions per square meter. The spéciales de claires taste meatier, with sweetness predominating over saltiness on the palate. Their pronounced flavor is long on one’s palate.
Pousse en claire: Top of the line, rare, and in demand each winter, these oysters also bear the red-label designation to inform and protect the consumer. They live a rarefied life, with only one to a maximum of five companions per square meter, while growing for a minimum of four months but commonly six or eight months in their little ponds. They get hand treatment from selection to packing. They are firm and bitable, and beyond the aromas and flavors of the region display a pronounced goût du terroir, sweetness, and extra-long finish.
The spéciales and fines de claires account for the great majority of the production (about 24,000 tons out of 25,000); the fines de claires vertes add up to barely 1 ton; and the pousses en claires are exceptionally rare, with only 200 kilos marketed per year.
Belons: As I have described earlier, these tend to have a smooth, flat belly and are not finished in claires but are affinées (refined) in an estuary of the Belon River in Brittany. Their bold seaweed-and-metallic flavor bursts on the palate, and their long finish is somewhat iodized.
When you choose an oyster in Paris, whether at an oyster bar, a restaurant, or in a market or from a sidewalk vendor, besides the type of oyster you choose, you choose the size. France being France, there is a classification system with five categories. Based upon weight, and especially the size and outer dimensions of the shell, the categories are marked with numbers from 0 to 5, with 0 being the largest and 5 the smallest. But just as in our supersized world, clothes may be sized as XL, XXL, XXXL, and beyond, sizings also exist now for the largest oysters. The size designations of 0, 00, 000, and 0000 are applied notably to flat oysters (plates), such as Belons (oysters sized 0000 weigh more than 126 grams). When ordering, though, it is still common to revert to the informal practice of asking for small, medium, or large oysters.
THE NOT-SO-GENTLE ART OF OPENING AN OYSTER
Have you ever opened a can of paint by inserting a screwdriver into the cover rim slot and then leveraging and twisting the screwdriver till the lid popped open? Et voilà. You know how to open an oyster… that is how you do it, except you use an oyster knife, which is short—only a couple of inches—and wider than a screwdriver and tapered to a point but not sharp. French guys like Régis can pull their Swiss Army–style knives out of their pockets and use the three-inch blade as a substitute. Don’t be daunted. Women tend to approach oyster opening like popping a Champagne cork (with timidity), but once they’ve practiced, it becomes second nature. A trick is to wear a pair of kitchen or work gloves with rubberized palms so you can grip the usually sharp oyster shells firmly and also not worry about slipping and getting jabbed by the knife. Some people prefer a thick dish towel folded in one’s hand or held flat on a countertop for protection. Chacun son goût (Each to their own taste).
Each oyster has its own “hole,” its indentation near where the upper and lower shells are hinged. Find it, and the rest is mechanical.
Using your less-dominant hand, grip the oyster with the flat side of the shell facing up, cupped side down (to better retain the juice). Using your other hand for the knife, and while keeping the blade flat and parallel to the shell, slide the tip of the oyster knife into the hinge joint at the end of the oyster. Work the blade into the hinge, twisting until you feel a release signaling that the ligament that keeps the shell closed has been breached.
With the blade still inserted and parallel to the shell, draw the knife across the interior of the top shell, separating the oyster flesh from the shell. Pry off the top shell and discard.
Your oyster meat should be whole within a small pool of liquid (called the liquor) in the bottom shell. Taking care not to spill the liquor or pierce the flesh, edge the blade under the oyster meat and slide through the muscles attaching it to the shell. C’est tout. Nowadays there are any number of videos on the Web demonstrating the knack of opening an oyster.
If you should spill a bit of the liquor when you open your oysters, let the oysters sit for a while on a bed of ice or cold seaweed, and the oysters will themselves excrete more liquid. This second water is much appreciated by connoisseurs. A dry oyster is not one to eat, and in a restaurant you should consider returning it for a replacement.
MORE TIPS AND SOME CAUTIONS
If you are worried about eating a bad oyster, remember, it should first be alive. If the shell is open, tap it with the oyster knife, and if it closes, all is well. If not, discard the dead oyster. Also, if you have doubts, once you open the shell, if you just touch the oyster firmly with the tip of the knife, it will react if it is alive. And, naturally, if you come across an oyster that just does not smell right, it probably is not right, so pass on it.
When I grew up, there was the famous rule of eating oysters only in months ending in r, essentially fall and winter. That was mostly about refrigeration, but not completely. It did not matter if you had a good home or a restaurant refrigerator, summer temperatures, unrefrigerated wagons and vans, and ice that had a tendency to melt, as Louis XIV’s physician worried about, all led to dead oysters. That is no longer the problem in the developed world. I have eaten French oysters with delight in Abu Dhabi and in Beijing without hesitation and without consequences.
Oysters need to be maintained at a cool but not freezing temperature; however, today there is a chance that oysters can become frozen. Then, either they revive a bit after being thawed from their suspended state (if they weren’t frozen like a rock); or they don’t revive, and you get to eat dead oysters that were frozen fresh and so are not unsafe, just not as tasty. The ideal is to eat an oyster not more than four or five days after it has come from its native waters. (Okay, the ideal might be to eat it immediately, shoreside, as it comes from the water.)
In a French home, oysters are often bought in a bourriche (again, crate or basket), and all the pertinent information is required to appear on the basket label, from origin to type to size to date harvested. While you can keep the oysters in the refrigerator, it is not the best place for more than a day because it has a built-in dehumidifier. Oysters will keep nicely for several days in a cool place (5–10 degrees Celsius or 41–50 degrees Fahrenheit is fine). Store them on the concave side of the shell to help the oysters keep their water.
Oysters are fairly safe creatures to transport, because when those two shells close, the oyster inside is hermetically sealed, keeping out all things bad, like bacteria. A bad oyster is rare in France, but I avoid oysters from countries or places with warm waters or polluted rivers and estuaries. My stomach is just not prepared for those local bacteria. Cooking these oysters helps, and cooking oysters in a special preparation is sometimes a signature of a top chef and oh so yummy, too. I address cooking oysters and provide recipes in chapter 12.
I said that while temperature mostly has dictated our preference for eating oysters in months ending in r, we know today they can be enjoyed year-round. However, they do not taste the same year-round. In France’s warmer months, oysters generally reproduce as well as eat differently, as flora and fauna available to them change with the season, so they taste a little different than in winter and tend to be a bit more milky.
IN PREPARATION FOR EATING: THE ANTICIPATION, THEN THE TASTING
Oyster lovers like oysters prepared just about any way, cooked or raw, but… the strongest advocates and devotees often argue that the best way to experience and enjoy an oyster is nature, naked: an oyster on a half shell with nothing on it. Then you will experience the unique tastes and textures of the specific oyster, its type and its terroir.
The most common accoutrement to oysters is just a squirt of fresh lemon on top; that’s how Edward eats them. And while I do sometimes eat them nature or with some lemon, I am a bit of a maverick and belong to a small minority who prefer oysters on the half shell with some freshly ground white or black pepper, something I learned back in my college years in Paris from a roommate from central France who put pepper on just about everything. I don’t, but with oysters… I like it. For me, it helps intensify the flavor of the oyster. (The website lecomptoirdespoivres.com, which sells the greatest pepper varieties in the world, recommends several white peppers to season oysters.)
In France and in many other countries, you can expect a classic shallot vinegar mignonette sauce to be served in a small dish for those who want a little added drizzled flavor (it’s not for me). In America and elsewhere you can always count on a hot red sauce or a bottle of Tabasco sauce for those who want to “kick the flavor up a notch,” just the thing I do with fresh pepper on some milder tasting oysters. Also in France, a platter of oysters normally comes accompanied by rye bread and salted butter (for the bread).
Rye bread is a classic, as it marries well with the iodine savor of the oyster, plus it is rich in fiber and helps ensure a quick satiety. But with the wide variety of oysters, a country bread or a whole wheat or five-grain type will work as well. As for butter, a Charentais will opt for a Poitou-Charentes type; whereas in Brittany it will be demi-sel, or slightly salted butter; and in Normandy it will be a sweet type of butter made at the farm.