Oysters
Flavour Profile
Briny, metallic and intensely fresh. They taste like the specific patch of ocean they came from.
Depending on the variety, you might pick up notes of cucumber, melon, or even a copper-like finish. The texture should be firm and creamy, not slimy.
Health Benefits
Oysters are zinc bombs, which is good for your immune system and skin. You also get a decent hit of B12, which helps turn food into energy and keeps your nervous system working.
Best eaten fresh, obviously.
Buying Tips
Buy them alive. The shells must be tightly closed. If one is slightly open, tap it; if it doesn't snap shut immediately, it's dead and belongs in the bin.
Ask your fishmonger when they were harvested. Freshness isn't a suggestion with oysters, it's the whole point.
Storage
Store them flat-side up in the fridge to keep their natural juices (the 'liquor') inside.
Cover them with a damp cloth to keep them from drying out, but never store them in an airtight container or submerged in fresh water. They need to breathe, but they don't want a bath.
Cooking Uses
Most purists stop at a squeeze of lemon or a dash of mignonette.
If you're cooking them, keep it fast. Grill them in the shell with garlic butter until they just start to curl, or flash-fry them in a light batter. Overcooked oysters turn into pencil erasers.
Forkin' Food Theory
An oyster is a living filter. Because they spend their lives pumping seawater through their bodies, they are the ultimate expression of 'merroir'—the marine equivalent of terroir in wine.
When you eat a raw oyster, you aren't just eating a shellfish; you're drinking the exact chemical composition of the water it lived in.
This is why an oyster from the south of France tastes nothing like one from the coast of New South Wales. You're tasting a specific coordinate on a map.