|
|
|
WORLD SHUCKING CHAMPIONS: Meal Ticket vs. The Oysters
The Web site for the award-winning alternative weekly, the Philadelphia City Paper.
WORLD SHUCKING CHAMPIONS: Meal Ticket vs. The Oysters
In my soporific little hometown of Bel Air, Maryland (about 80 miles south of Philly), beer and liquor is sold in one store (and it's so, so cheap), jacked-up, mud-splattered Jeep Wranglers rule the unnaturally wide roadways and the only things outnumbering the big-box chain restaurants are the gigantic McCain/Palin signs stabbed into peoples' pristine lawns.
There's also this old Exxon gas station that a guy named Richard converted into a seafood shack. As you can see from the first picture above, Richard did not take very many aesthetic steps to make his business appear more like Harford County's blue crab-steaming HQ than an unleaded refueling station. But that's OK — he's got fresh oysters.
My girlie and I made a pitstop at Richard's during a weekend trip to visit one of my oldest friends who celebrated the big 2-5 on Halloween. The Lazor household is huge on oysters, so we scooped up 48 in total — a dozen Chincoteague salts from Virginia, a dozen blue points from Long Island and two dozen Jersey salts, which many Philly-area seafood fans are familiar with — to share with mi familia. Moments after we proudly strutted through the door with our soaked-through, smelling-like-the-shore paper sack of shells, my mother popped in with another two dozen Jersey salts. Also from Richard's.
What the hell do you do with 72 OYSTERS?
Get to shucking, kids.
I'm a total noob when it comes to all this, so I let my dad clue me in to the process. He busted out a short, flat wood-handled knife that he admitted was designed more for clams than oysters. ("The purists are probably going to call you out on this," he told me.) On paper, the process is simple. Using a rag or glove to steady the oyster, find the space near the rear "hinge " — where it comes to a point — slide your knife in as far as you can get it and twist. It should pop open with a sound eerily similar to the noise that comes from a vacuum-sealed tube of Pillsbury crescent roll dough when you strike it against the edge of your kitchen counter. I watched my pop run through a good two dozen with minimal effort.
"This doesn't look so bad," I thought to myself. Foolishly.
I stabbed myself soooo many times. The problem is not the knife, though — it's the damn shells. These things are killers. I sliced open my hand in at least five places as I struggled to half-shell a mere dozen. After stoically refusing to don a bulky oven mitt (my mom's idea), I opted for a dishrag to hold my great-with-fresh-squeezed-lemon enemies in place. But of course, the rag got progressively wetter the more I shucked, as did the cutting board I was using as a support, causing my digits to flail and scrape over every rocky unforgiving nook and bastard barnacle. This shit is not easy!
After shedding a good amount of blood, though, I started to get the hang of it a little bit, and managed to run through about 20 before stopping to properly dress my wounds. That pop sound is definitely one of the most satisfying noises I've heard in a long time. (That's what she said) When I order oysters out somewhere, servers and bartenders almost always take great care to describe origins and flavors, information I pay especially close attention to because I'm a nerd. With my own go-round, however, I just slurped and slurped and slurped, aided by a great homemade mignonette whipped up by m'lady, never quite noting the subtleties between the different varieties. They all tasted like the ocean and they all tasted great.
I have newly acquired respect for the mother shuckers at my favorite restaurants. Here's to you, flat-blade-wielding sirs and madams. May your hands forever remain cut-free, and may your demeanor stay as salty as an oyster scraped from the bottom of the Choptank River.
- barstool scientist
- Booze
- Brew Revue
- Chef Salad
- Closings
- Coffee
- Contests
- Dealage
- Dirty Dishes
- Don't Front
- Eat This Immediately
- Field Trip
- Food and Art
- Food and Holidays
- Food and Movies
- Food and Music
- Food and Politics
- Food and Sports
- Food and Web
- Food Blogs
- Food Books
- Food Events
- Food News
- Food TV
- Gifted
- Happy Hour Hopper
- How-To
- In Print
- Interview
- Meal Ticket
- Menu Time
- Not So Quickfire
- Notes from the Weekend
- On Wheels
- Openings
- Patio Drinking
- Philly Beer Week 2010
- Photos
- Private Chef POV
- Product Placement
- Recipes
- Snack Time
- Stiff Drank
- SUPPER
- Tea
- Testing
- Ticket Stubs
- Top Chef
- Vegan
- Vegetarian
- Video
- Weekly Candy
- Weird Regional Foods
- We're Here to Help
- Where'd We Eat?
- Drew Lazor's Ill-Advised Rant Factory
- Pregame
- Ill-Advised Ranting
- The Week Without Meat
- Philly Beer Week 2009
- Real Big
- Where'd I Eat Last Night?
- Top Chef Masters
- The Good Word
- Next Iron Chef
- Arterial Terrorism
- Food and Radio
