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MORE ROUND SHELLS ’ROUND THE ROUND WORLD

When I was a high school exchange student near Boston, I learned to eat lobster and then more lobsters (addictive), but curiously my host families did not proffer any oysters. No Wellfleets, Chathams, Island Creeks, or Cotuits, to name just a few of the finest oysters found in Massachusetts.

Growing up in Alsace-Lorraine, far from the sea, I did not experience oysters until I was eleven, as I have written; however, thereafter, they were obligatory in my home on New Year’s Eve, and when I went to university in Paris and started to work there, oysters were routinely part of my diet. French oysters, while varying widely in subtle tastes based on how and where they were raised, are relatively limited in the types and locations. I had not yet experienced the wide world of oysters, or the wide world, for that matter. I thought oysters were oysters, delicious but basically the same.

Then early in my New York life I visited the Oyster Bar and Restaurant at Grand Central Station, a cavernous landmark that opened in 1913 with the railroad terminal. What oysters… at least twenty-five kinds, none that I had ever heard of and none from France. There were Witch Ducks from Virginia, Sunset Beaches from Washington State, Sister Points from British Columbia, Pemaquids from Maine, Peconic Pearls from Long Island, Malpeques from Prince Edward Island, Lady Chatterleys from Nova Scotia, Belons from Maine, and my soon favorite, Kumamotos from Oregon. Wow, what choices, what shapes, what flavors. My eyes and palate were opened. On each successive visit, there were more choices among the two dozen or so temptations. I even remember experiencing my first oyster from New Zealand there. Some two million oysters cross the plates and the palates at the Oyster Bar each year. That’s a hard number to contemplate… averaging more than five thousand a day.

London, like New York, is an oyster town rich in history and oyster restaurants. On many a pilgrimage there for theater or libraries with my literary husband, we’ve found our way to the J. Sheekey Oyster Bar in Covent Garden for some West Mersea oysters or Maldons from England and an occasional fine de claire from France. Or sometimes we’ve dined not far away on Maiden Lane at the famous Rules, with its oyster origins, and began our meal with a few Wild Cumbrae rocks or Duchy of Cornwall rock oysters.

Closest to our hearts and stomachs, though, are the oysters at Bibendum, located on Fulham Road in South Kensington. I have often stayed in the area and am old enough to remember when the Michelin garage and tire shop closed and then Mr. Conant opened Bibendum. Many a day I have had Colchester rocks, Jersey Royales, and Loch Ryan no. 3s there.

HOW MANY COUNTRIES, LET ME START TO COUNT…

There is indeed much oyster life beyond France, as I have learned from experience and curiosity. Besides America, Canada, and England, there are thriving oyster industries in Ireland, Holland, Spain, Mexico, Morocco, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Brazil, South Korea, China, Thailand, and Japan, as well as small suppliers in many other countries.

In France, you’ll recall, there are generally only two types of oysters: (1) Crassostrea gigas, so-called Pacific oysters, the world’s most cultivated oyster and the oyster of the Marennes-Oléron, and (2) the Ostrea edulis, known as European flats, best represented by and called Belons. They also grow natively in Maine and Washington State and in northern climes besides in Belon, France. (A third species, Crassostrea virginicas, or Atlantic oysters, is among the species cultivated in France in the Étang de Thau, the large lagoon opening into the Mediterranean Sea, whose oysters are called Bouzigues. The small Ostreola or Ostrea conchaphila, commonly known as the Olympia oyster, is a fourth species that can be found in France, though in very modest quantities.)

There are other species spread around the world. Kumamoto oysters, for example, are their own species, Crassostrea silamea. Small and creamy with some melon overtones, they are prized. Atlantic oysters (Crassostrea virginicas), mentioned above, are also native to America’s northeast coast, including the area in and around New York. The commonly named bluepoints, Malpeques, Wellfleets, and Beausoleils constitute the vast majority of oysters harvested in America. There is no mistaking their briny character and firm, full-bodied flesh.

If you have ever seen oysters smaller than Kumamotos, they are probably Ostrea lurida or Ostrea conchaphila, Olympia oysters, which can be found in Puget Sound and British Columbia (and in small quantities in France, as mentioned above). These are native American oysters and once populated San Francisco Bay in abundance. They are both sweet and metallic tasting.

The Sydney rock oyster, Saccostrea glomerata, the native small to midsize oyster of New South Wales, is among the elite oysters of the world, with intense flavor along buttery and creamy lines.

I want to mention just two more species. First, Ostrea chilensis, the Chilean oyster, small, briny, and firm, is, as its name suggests, a native species from Chile. And thus, like oysters from Australia and New Zealand, Chilean oysters are at their peak during Northern Hemisphere summers. And second is Suminoe, Crassostrea ariakensis, the Chinese oyster nicknamed Sumo, which is hearty and large and increasingly grown around the world, though I would not try it in China’s polluted waters.

In all, scientists have classified about four hundred species of oysters. But no two taste quite the same, of course, not even within the same species, as the flavor is heavily influenced by the habitat, the terroir. Even oysters raised under five feet of water could taste different than those raised at seven feet. Minerals, algae/plankton, salinity, tides, and more beyond the species influence their taste.

THE WORLD’S BEST? THE TOP 10?

Taste is subjective and taste preferences are built upon experience, yet we all want a shortcut to finding our favorites and our richest experiences. Thus today’s ubiquitous top 10 lists. I doubt anyone has tasted all four hundred species of oysters, and it is impossible to taste the oysters from the thousands and thousands of places where they grow. But as life is too short to waste time tasting tasteless oysters, let the game begin—my first take on ten to try:

1. If it is Monday, for me the best is a pousse en claire, the rare top creuse from the Marennes… firm and sweet and packed with flavor and length. When it comes from Papin-Poget, all the better.

2. If it is Tuesday, then for me the best is a Belon from Brittany with its powerful salty, copper, and algae flavors.

3. Since I am such a Francophile, let me be fair and include a non-French oyster I have yet to taste, but great chefs, well, great Danish chefs, proclaim it probably the best oyster in the world: the Limfjord oyster, which comes from the cold waters north of Jutland. These are endangered European flat oysters, similar to flat-shelled Belons and from the same species. Here they grow slowly amid the cold waters in the largest native concentration remaining in Europe (and once monopolized by the king) and reportedly are more meaty and subtle than other oysters and exhibit a nutty character without pronounced iodized sea flavors.

4. Even though some think Kumamoto oysters, preferably from America’s Pacific Northwest, are not for the sophisticated, I know what I like, and I love them. Their modest size, their seductive sweetness… umm. With a glass of Chablis or a sauvignon blanc… let the hedonists top that.

5. Oualidia no. 3s from Morocco are worth the detour. The pristine pure lagoon (along the coast between Casablanca and Essaouira), washed by the crashing waves of the Atlantic Ocean, is a natural oyster park. Eating the Marennes-Oléron breed of oysters seaside in Oualidia shows why the Oualidia no. 3s are known as the best in Morocco with their clean salt and mild grassy flavors. The French-influenced wine industry in Morocco is mature, and I can testify that among the memorable choices was the CB Initiales, a chardonnay with a few years of bottle age that evokes a fine Burgundy and raises the Oualidia oyster experience to even greater heights.

6. When I flew to Tasmania for business some years back, my gourmet friends said that I must eat the oysters and drink the wines. I remember the wines as being good… but the Tasmanian oysters—primarily the Pacific oysters Crassostrea gigas—were great and unforgettable: big and buttery, salty and seaweed flavored, clean and crisp. With pinot noir and chardonnay being first among equally great grapes grown here, the sparkling wines produced in Tasmania are indeed sparkling… just the thing for these oysters.

7. What’s a trip to Sydney without tasting a few Sydney rock oysters? This native Australian oyster (Saccostrea glomerata) is now cultivated widely throughout New South Wales and beyond. I have found the taste to vary—no doubt due to where they were raised—but it is safe to say they are distinctive: smaller than the average oyster, softer and creamier, with varying mineral and iodine flavors. I am looking forward to my next dozen.

8. A few years back I was eating oysters on the half shell in Boston at Barbara Lynch’s first great restaurant, No. 9 Park (still going strong sixteen or so years later). I bit into a bivalve that was buttery and salty yet focused and sweet on the finish… wow. I remember involuntarily saying to myself, “I love oysters.” That happens now and again, and when it does, I know I have just had a special experience. The oysters were Massachusetts locals: Island Creeks from Duxbury Farms. Perhaps I should have listed this as number 9 in honor of the restaurant.

9. The legendary Galway oyster, Ireland’s native European flat oyster (Ostrea edulis) now is mostly cultivated. What’s not to love? Here the most esteemed of these oysters are cultivated by the Kelly family on Inner Galway Bay in water that passes all tests for quality. They are sold as Kelly Galway oysters—firmly textured with flinty and metallic overtones but smooth tasting, they are often described as big with soy-sauce tonalities.

10. Japan, Jersey Island, Brazil, Loch Ryan oysters from Scotland, more varieties from North America, even some from Africa—where is number 10? I am tempted by France, ha-ha, but how about New Zealand? Talk about unpolluted and oxygenated waters. I have been fortunate to travel there for business on numerous occasions, and I am always content with a plate of Bluff oysters from the southernmost part of New Zealand, Bluff. Next stop the South Pole. Native to New Zealand and Chile, these oysters (Tiostrea chilensis, also known as ostra chilena) are harvested by dredging. They can grow quite large and taste of the fresh sea, from which they are harvested from a few meters deep to more commonly twenty or thirty meters. And, of course, the wines in New Zealand are divine. An exotic-fruit sauvignon blanc from Marlborough with Bluff oysters perhaps becomes oysters with wine instead of wine with oysters.

CAVEAT EMPTOR

What does an oyster taste like? That’s a hard question to answer. Above and earlier, I have tried to use common descriptors for some oysters, and have tried to give brief suggestions of what to expect from certain types and species of oysters.

However, for two reasons, I don’t quite trust mine or anyone’s shorthand descriptions. The first I have hit upon repeatedly: a particular type or species of oyster can taste quite a bit different depending upon its age, size, and where it grew up. The water it lived in and on, the minerals and phytoplankton it ingested, the temperature of its home, the season it is tasted, the salinity, et cetera, et cetera, all can change the taste dynamics from one oyster to another a dozen feet away, not to mention a half world apart.

The other reason is: I find that how I eat an oyster can have a dramatic difference in what I taste. If I bring an oyster up to my lips and let it slide out of its shell and into my mouth, or push it out of the shell with an oyster fork into my mouth, then chew, chew, and swallow it down my throat with its salty liquor, that’s one taste. If I lift it out of the shell with an oyster fork, let the liquor roll off, put it in my mouth, and chew, then swallow, another experience. Then I drink the liquor. With and without the salty water, liquor, two different experiences.

Certainly I taste the sea powerfully when I drink the liquid with the flesh of the oyster. The salt is long on the finish, powerful, and can taste of iodine. Whatever the mineral characteristics of the water, I taste. The salt in particular, if strong, certainly can mask some of the flesh flavors, or at least add different dimensions to them. I find that the oysters out of the liquor generally taste sweeter, and I can pick up more flavor overtones, such as melony, grassy, or nutty flavors. The finish is not as metallic or strong till I drink the liquor. Two descriptions for the same or similar oysters. Hmm. Both seductively pleasant.

So, the tasting notes are accurate only generally. A Kumamoto is sweeter, smaller, and less metallic than a Belon, that’s for sure. Thus there is no substitute for tasting and tasting oysters to form your own opinions and perhaps descriptors. Wine tasting is much easier.

LIBATIONS

I prefer wine with oysters, preferably Champagne, merci beaucoup. Yet much of the world prefers beer. Okay. So oysters grow in six continents (and beyond), in countless bays and lagoons, and include four hundred species. Today we live in a world of microbreweries using different waters and hops to make countless types and styles, and of course large commercial breweries shipping the world over. Oysters and beer. If you fancy beer with oysters as a match, good luck; you have a lifetime or two of work and pleasure ahead in finding your winning combinations.

Spirits are another historic and pleasurable marriage partner with oysters. Brandy works. And the flavor variations among brandies and barrels and aging are legend. Ditto Scotch whisky. There are many who believe the smoky essence of many Scotches, especially single malts, marry exceptionally well with various oysters. It’s a classic: one plus one equals more than more when it comes to taste and experience of food and drink. But as any Scotch connoisseur (not me) knows, the Scotch palette is extensive… and so are the subtleties of oysters. Lots of combinations work well, but again, there is much work and pleasure for those inclined to experiment.

Let’s consider wine. It, too, can be as complicated as you want to make it, but there are so many winning combinations of wines from around the world with oysters from around the world, why bother? Just enjoy.

The parameters are pretty simple. Generally, dry white wines work best, whether still or sparkling. Some of the more aromatic wines are attractive but less universal.

The French are the biggest consumers of both French wines and French oysters, but they produce enough to ship them all over the world. The French wines I pointed out earlier—Champagne, Chablis, Sancerre, muscadet, Pouilly-Fuissé, and Entre-Deux-Mers—are safe bets and are likely available in some combination if wines are sold where oysters are sold.

But why not think grape or think local? Or both? America’s Pacific Northwest is rich in oysters and oyster wines; for example, pinot gris, riesling (dry), even chenin blanc and sémillon from Washington State. Pinot grigio from Italy, another simple, crisp white, works. Pinot blanc, sure. Or a Spanish albariño, why not? An Austrian grüner veltliner, perhaps. Chardonnays work brilliantly so long as they have crisp acidity and are not too fat and buttery, so be careful of hot-climate chardonnays or overly oaked ones.

The grape of first consideration no matter where it is made—from New Zealand to Chile to the Loire Valley—is sauvignon blanc, which, when well made, has a tart acidity that cuts well the fatty taste of oysters, and so long as the wines aren’t too grassy, but more fruity, balance the taste of most oysters. The big metallic oysters, though, like Belons, can be a challenge for any wine. Then I have an answer I have given thousands of times in my life.

When in doubt, drink Champagne. Okay, a well-made sparkling wine from around the world should also stand up to any oyster and enrich the gustatory experience.