Oysters, Then and Now

oyster: Middle English, oistre, from Middle French, from Latin ostrea, from Greek ostreon, akin to Greek ostrakon shell, osteon, bone.

That's its etymology (edited) according to Webster's New Collegiate. I won't bother with the definition because everyone knows what oysters are. Don't they?

"The bravest man is the one who first ate an oyster."  No doubt about that. My grandfather said that he followed the precepts of his own father, who "would not eat anything that still had its bowels."  Lucky for him that he lived on a farm in Tennessee, and then in Central Texas,  where there are very few oyster beds.

When my father, traveling on the cotton business right after WWII, went to New York, he went to the hotel restaurant, where fried oysters were presented at some certain price by the half dozen.  "I'll have two or three dozen," he said to the waitress.  "Are you sure you want that many?" she asked, boggled. "Well, start with two dozen, then, " said he.  "I'm going to start you with six," said the lady, "and then we'll see."  When the oysters arrived, they were each the size of a small steak, of course, and had to be cut into with knife and fork. What a surprise.

My mother loved to tell that story of how surprised my father was to receive those six  fried oysters on a large platter.  We could all imagine his surprise, because the oysters we ate were very small Gulf of Mexico oysters, as fresh and sweet as you could imagine in the ages before petroleum laced their natal waters. My mother fried them up in cornmeal and salt and pepper, and even the kids could eat a dozen each without ever having to cut into one once.

The best place to eat oysters out was down in Port Isabel, about twenty miles away on the Laguna Madre and the Gulf both.  When I was very very young it was Point Isabel, but at some point it became Port Isabel as I remember the younger generation (my mother and uncle RB) correcting my grandmother to set her straight.  The best place in Port Isabel to eat oysters was at Carlos's Cafe.  Carlos just knew how to make those oysters so perfectly delicious.  His crowning success was Oysters En Brochette. I can still see the grease-marked piece of paper with the menu items typewritten across it...good, I can't see the price. It would make me cry for our monetary system.

Carlos strung those little oysters on sticks of wood, dredged them with flour, salt, pepper, melted butter, and grilled them over a flame.  I can't tell you how good they were. Even my mother, dauntless cook, refrained from ever competing with Carlos on Oysters en Brochette.  In my memory, it is always November when we are driving down there in the frigid twilight, driving about to look for Carlos who tended to move his operation around from time to time. Yes, it did sometimes get cold in our tropical kingdom of South Texas, when a norther hit and it became very cold (in the forties), damp and dark, with a neat 50 mph breeze constantly buffeting us as we drove.  The oysters  were worth it.

I did not eat raw oysters until I grew up, and those mostly were in San Francisco or San Diego restaurants. I have forsworn for a number of years the presentation of raw oysters in my own home.  One Christmas holiday I bought some wonderful raw Eastern oysters flown out that day, from Ron Kiefer's market in Mission Hills.  I am sure they were perfect.  But instead of putting them bravely out on chilled plates with lemon and hot sauce (yes, yes, we have to have it at every meal), I chickened out and served my guests from South America a pallid bisque, instead.  Since then, if I want a raw oyster, I leave the responsibility of buying, keeping and serving it to professionals (like Carlos). The best raw oysters I ever had were at lunch, at the counter, at Dobson's in San Diego. WOWie. Who needs pearls?   YAZZYBEL