What is just as
important as tasting them is the memories I have. Growing up, my
daddy would go to the seafood market and buy a bag of oysters. Heck,
try to buy one now and it’ll cost you your firstborn but back then
I’d go with him and we’d bring that big bag of raw oysters home
where he would place it on the tailgate of the truck. Armed with
saltines and hot sauce, he’d shuck them while we ate them raw in
the side yard. Usually it was cold outside standing by the truck but
it sure made those oysters taste good – fresh, briny, and cold.
Sometimes my mom would save some for the dressing she’d make at
Thanksgiving.
If you’ve never
had a raw oyster, it’s like a rite of passage. The first one should
have a little hot sauce and horseradish on it if you like and then
you just pick it up and let it slide into your mouth along with the
oyster liquor. In fact, that liquor keeps the oyster alive out of the
water and is one of the best parts of eating the delicacy. The briny
taste of the Gulf of Mexico is the first thing you notice and the
freshness cannot be duplicated. You’ll see tourists trying them and
almost always they’ll go for the baked or fried but they don’t
know what they’re missing.
You see, to me it’s
not just the oyster and how it tastes, it’s the memory of my dad
handing me a shucked oyster to eat or my mom making oyster dressing
when most other families I knew had cornbread dressing for
Thanksgiving. It’s going to a local dive and having oysters for
dinner along with a basket of crackers and Tabasco sauce and it’s
feeling that first cold drop of liquor hitting your taste buds –
there’s a reason they’re considered umami.
If I could travel
back in time, one place I’d go is right back to my daddy’s truck
and share an oyster or six with him. Since I can’t travel back in
time, every time I have raw oysters I think back to that little girl
sharing some with her dad at the back of his truck on a cold, winter
day.
Photo Credit:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ivanwalsh