Everything You Wanted to Know But Were Afraid to Ask Oysters on the Half Shell: Kinds, Qualities, Drinks Kinds of Oysters: What's Your Type? A Natural History of Oysters: They Reproduce How?

There was a time when oysters flourished, when they were enjoyed in staggering quantities by rich and poor alike, but these days, the oyster is a luxury. It must be kept safe from pollution, parasites, and marine predators in order to preserve it for human consumption -- the pinnacle of which is the raw, living oyster (with all due respect to the many who adore their oysters cooked). In Consider the Oyster, the inimitable M.F.K. Fisher identifies three types of oyster eaters: "loose-minded sports" (who will jump at any opportunity at all), those who like them raw (the most extreme of whom can't even abide a tiny drop of lemon juice on their oysters), and those who like them cooked.

The Oyster in History

Oysters thrive in areas where salt water and fresh water meet -- estuaries, salt marshes fed by rivers and streams, coastal waters -- the same places where people have always tended to settle. Huge, ancient mounds of oyster shells have been found in such areas all over the world, indicating that they have long been a popular source of nourishment. The ancient Greeks are known to have eaten them, and when the Romans invaded Britain in 55 BCE, and sampled the delicate harvests of the British coastal waters, they, too were smitten with the craving for oysters. Live oysters were transported to Rome - at great expense. Soon, oyster farms were established, in order that they might be served in almost unbelievable profusion at banquets -- a single diner might consume more than six dozen. But oysters were not reserved for the wealthy. Throughout the centuries, along the coasts of Europe, oysters were popular, accessible to the masses, and eaten with gusto. When Europeans landed in the Americas, they found the native people of the New World had their own immense supplies of oysters -- and their own a centuries-old habit of consuming them in huge quantities. This must have been a pleasant reminder of home to many of the settlers.

Oyster as Aphrodisiac

In the 17th century, still life paintings testify to a fascination with the unusual beauty and sensuous appeal of the oyster. And in his memoirs, written in the early 18th century, Casanova attributed his legendary prowess to his habit of consuming several dozen a day. (Perhaps the passionate fondness they evoke was responsible, by transference, for their reputation as an aphrodisiac. Or, maybe it was the other way around.)

The Lean Years

By the mid-18th century, though, the oyster population in many parts of the world had begun to show the effects of such unbridled enjoyment. The French government deployed the navy to protect their endangered oyster beds. Although the oyster was still known as nourishment for the poor in England as late as the Victorian era, by the turn of the century, this perception had changed. Everywhere, oysters became scarce where once they were plentiful. Oyster gatherers learned oyster farming in order to continue their livelihoods, and, although this saved oysters from disappearing, it marked the end of their widespread availability as economical food. When M.F.K. Fisher was writing in the 1940s, it was still common to buy raw oysters by the dozen, but today they are often sold by the piece -- to a public as eager and adoring as ever.

Oyster Links on the Web:
1. A wonderful site hosted by Mystic Seaport

2. The Assateague Naturalist -- a good picture chart of shells to be found on the Assateague shore and a bivalve anatomy page.

3. Safety considerations to keep in mind when eating raw oysters.

Reading List:
1. Consider the Oyster by M.F.K. Fisher (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1988). It would be misleading to mention this 76-page book as if it were simply a source of information about oysters. As with so much of Fisher's work, it is part essay, part memoir, part cookbook, with a great deal of poetry mixed in. Even people who don't have much fondness for oysters should probably read it -- they might change their minds.

2. A History of Food by Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat, translated from the French by Anthea Bell (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1992).

3. The English, the French and the Oyster by Robert Neild. London: Quiller Press, 1992.

4. Oysters by Charles Maurice Yonge. London: Collins, 1960.

5. Seafood: A Connoisseur's Guide and Cookbook by Alan Davidson (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989).

6. Oysters: A True Delicacy by Shirly Line (New York: MacMillan, 1995).