While the down-the-hatch method is a common approach to eating oysters, the experts prefer a bit of mastication. Photo / Vaimaila Leatinu'u
From the best drink to pair with them to whether you should chew or swallow, the experts set the record straight on these slippery classics.
They’re famed for making us frisky. Yet far from being seductive, whenever I’ve had oysters, I’ve felt ungainly and gauche. I’m never sure how to eat them, and asking my dinner date doesn’t help.
“Just swallow it!” comes the answer – and so I have, self-consciously and doubtful that I’m doing it right. But what’s the point of fast-tracking the bivalve without properly tasting it?
If there’s a dignified way to eat oysters without spilling seawater down one’s chin, I’m determined to find it – along with the truth behind certain myths surrounding the shellfish. My source? The London Oyster Championships, which for three years has been hosted by Bentley’s Oyster Bar & Grill in Mayfair.
With competitions for speed-shucking and serving suggestions, it’s awash with chefs and seafood specialists willing to share their pearls of wisdom…
The first thing I notice at the event is that the oyster shells are the wrong shape – or rather, different from the ones I’ve eaten in restaurants. They are native oysters (Ostrea edulis), not the more commonly served rock (or Pacific) oysters, which were cultivated in the UK from the 1960s to supplement declining native stocks.
Compared with rock oysters, natives have a rounder, flatter shell, and the oyster itself is smaller. While the former are available in the UK all year round, it’s the native oysters that are in season from September to April (all the months with an “R”) – and they’re worlds apart.
(Like the UK, New Zealand has two main types of oyster: Bluff oysters, which are wild-caught, and Pacific oysters, which are farmed.)
“Native oysters and rock oysters are so different, it’s like comparing Jamón ibérico to a packet of supermarket reconstituted ham,” says one championships attendee.
Richard Corrigan, Bentley’s chef patron and a three-time winner of The Great British Menu, puts it this way: “They’re a totally different flavour. With rock oysters you can put a bit of Asian-inspired dressing on them – a squeeze of lime, some crispy shallots and coriander, and ‘Wooo! This makes a good party!’ But the native oyster, it’s the altar. You’re on your knees. You don’t want to f*** around with something that’s so perfect.”
While the down-the-hatch method is a common approach, the experts prefer a bit of mastication to fully appreciate the bivalve. “Straight down, I think you miss the whole sensation,” argues Corrigan.
“They’re just too good to down,” agrees Tristan Hugh-Jones, who supplies Loch Ryan native oysters to London restaurants Scott’s, J Sheekey, the Wolseley and the Ritz, as well as Bentley’s.
“Don’t try to swallow them whole,” advises Great British Bake Off judge Prue Leith. “There’s no point – you don’t get the flavour.”
Instead, suggests Khatiche Larcombe of fishmongers Sista Shuck, “chew, always. Not like a Haribo or a steak – just three chews and swallow.”
It’s a popular partnership, granted, but I see some oyster enthusiasts at the championships sipping pints of stout – a pairing that dates back to the 18th and 19th centuries.
“Oysters were a very working-class thing in the 1800s and 1900s, so stout was a natural drink to have with them,” explains Corrigan. “Only when oysters became scarce and expensive did you need to have a few pounds to enjoy them. And the drink got more expensive, too” – hence the well-off turning to champagne.
These days one might, in fact, enjoy all three (pairing fresh oysters with a Black Velvet – the cocktail that combines champagne or sparkling wine with stout or porter – is “where the magic starts”, says drinks reviewer Jason Hackett) or branch out entirely: Corrigan favours a glass of muscadet, while Saturday Kitchen presenter Matt Tebbutt enjoys white burgundy with his bivalves.
Wine writer Hannah Crosbie likes to add a splash of sparkling wine to the oyster itself, and she’s not alone in eschewing the glass altogether: at the two-Michelin-star restaurant A Wong in London, An Dúlamán Irish Maritime Gin is served in an oyster shell, explains its distributor, Luke Brown of Oak & Still, resulting in a sip that delivers “a nice savoury, saline flavour” elevated by its final flourish in the shell.
I’m a reluctant cook, so oysters should make a great addition to my repertoire, given that they require pretty much zero prep – aside from the Herculean task of actually getting them open. But it doesn’t have to result in bloodletting.
Hugh-Jones believes the secret is having a good oyster knife – or any knife with a short, strong blade to prise the two shells apart. “Make sure it goes in, twist it, cut the muscle off the bottom and turn the oyster over,” he says. I might be more tempted to use a Rossmore oyster cracker, which doesn’t require as much force and promises no danger to life or limb.
Larcombe recommends an oyster-shucking clamp “which hugely limits your chances of cutting yourself”, but of course it’s always possible to get a head start from a professional, such as a fishmonger or farmers’ market supplier.
“We’ll do the hard bit by cracking them open,” says William Baker of Blackwater Oysters. Once home, put the box of opened oysters at the bottom of the fridge, he advises, and “eat them within a couple of hours”.
Burdened as I am by a tendency to get toothpaste down my top, I’m always afraid I’ll make a similar mess with oysters.
Corrigan has some advice: “Lift the oyster up and just tip it slowly, at a little 45-degree angle, and it just drops onto your tongue.” Alternatively, “use an oyster fork if you don’t want to put the shell in your mouth, and you’ll end up without any spillage”.
Larcombe offers this suggestion to counter the nerves: “Eat it as though you’re doing a shot of tequila. Not gingerly and sort of slurpy – no! Hold the shell, and if the oyster has been cut from the shell properly, you should be able to just knock it back, very confidently.”
For an immaculate eating experience, Baker recommends pouring off a little of the liquid from the shell before attempting to eat the flesh.
And to really eat your seafood with style, Corrigan has this tip: “When you finish your oyster, always put the shell back upside down,” he says. “It shows the oyster barman you might know something!”