Oysters, Finally.

After walking past the crates of oysters for the past few months, I finally relented and decided that I would try my hand at shucking oysters even though I have only eaten them out of a package or bottle up to now. Not that I didn't know where they came from: I'd seen restaurant workers shuck oysters outside Paris and Lyon restaurants many times before. But up until yesterday I had thought it too difficult to do myself.

At Carrefour, I got up the nerve to ask the guy working in the seafood section, what one needed when shucking oysters. Like did you need a special knife or some sort of blunt instrument. To which he replied, no, you just need a couteau à huitres, a oyster knife, which they sell in the knife section just over there.

I hesitated a bit before deciding to go for it: I mean, twenty-four oysters cost only 6 EUR, but the knife costs 5,60 EUR?

But I plopped down the money and set to cutting open the oysters after I got back from the supermarket. Naturally I butchered the first few ones (one can search how to shuck oysters on the Internet, but believe me you really can't get the hang of it until you actually start shucking them yourself, firsthand!), but the last two or three I got through very nicely, sliding the knife into the shell and prying open the shell glued tightly shut by the oyster membranes. It's not easy work, and I'll appreciate even more now the work of the guys out in the cold (yes, they work the oyster bar even in the dead of winter!)

As for how I cooked them: made a simple broth from hon-dashi, and cooked them lighly like a fondue. After what happened to ( ) this summer, no matter how fresh the oysters might have seemed, no worth taking chances with raw oysters ...! (Well, one day I might try it, with wine and vinegar nearby to help digest it!)