How It's Used

"Although the wading oyster harvester can eventually fill his basket on a dark and windy day, high noon, clear skies and smooth water make the task much easier, enabling you to spot the quarry on the bottom; otherwise you are simply probing blind, waiting to feel the grating of shells against your rake. Good visibility also enables you to pick out individual specimens rather than clusters. On any natural oyster bed, there are many of the bivalves that have perished for one reason or another. Some, their shells tightly closed, look enticing but hold nothing but sand and mud. As you become adept at oystering, you will be able to identify such specimens on the bottom. Their shells tend to be several shades lighter than those of their living counterparts...

"Much is made of the difficulty of shucking oysters, but any reasonably dexterous person will be able to handle the needs of his or her family after a few hours' practice. Hold the bivalve deep side down and hinge away from you in your gloved left hand and insert the oyster knife's thin, tapered, two-edged and blunt-nosed blade between the bivalve's two shells about a third of the way up from the hinge. Keep the thumb and forefinger of your right hand close to the knife's point to minimize the chance of slipping and stabbing yourself. Push and wiggle the blade a little and you'll find a place where the blade will enter. Then, all you have to do is shove the blade deeper and swing it back and forth to sever the adductor muscle which is between the shells on the opposite side. Slide the knife back toward the hinge and twist it to free the upper shell from the lower."

"This venerable New York establishment [the Grand Central Oyster Bar] is as famous for its gas-warmed copper chafing dishes and its vaulted tile ceiling as it is for its 15 varieties of bivalve (4,000 shucked daily). The creamy oyster stew and the pan roast, prepared in front of you, are popular. Avoid the lunchtime and early-dinner rushes if you want to hear your cellphone."

"State Sen. Patty Birkholz was walking along the sugar-sand beach here on Lake Michigan recently when she picked up a handful of dime-size, black-and-white-striped shells clinging together at the edge of the water. 'The first time I saw one of these I thought, "Oh isn't that cute,"' Sen. Birkholz said. 'Ha! We had no idea what we were in for.'

"The shell turned out to be a Zebra mussel, a species indigenous to the Caspian Sea that scientists believe was dumped into the Great Lakes with the ballast water used to help stabilize trans-Atlantic ships. Since its discovery, the mussel has cost about $5 billion in damages to power companies, boaters and the fishing and tourism industries. Sen. Birkholz's first sight of the tiny bivalve 19 years ago began her long and frustrating crusade to keep any more invasive species out of the lakes."

"Oysters! Yeah! Or Oysters! Yuck! So which are you? There are few foods that inspire such a passionately unequivocal response, on both sides. Oysters are the gourmet's Marmite. Some worship, while others revile. Woody Allen, for example, has very clear opinions on the bivalve: 'I will not eat oysters. I want my food dead—not sick, not wounded—dead.'"

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