I don't remember when I ate my first oyster; it was probably twenty years ago. I haven't kept score, but in the past year alone I've had a couple hundred raw oysters. Yet Sunday was the first time that I'd ever found a pearl in an oyster. Fortunately I didn't chip a tooth in the process. According to one source, "only about one in 10,000 wild oysters will yield a pearl".
The pearl can be seen at right with a Shiner 99 bottle cap for comparison. Smaller than a BB, grey/brown in color yet slightly iridescent in the right light. Alas, it's too small for the old tooth test.
For those of you who saw this title and assumed the worst, I have yet to experience the uniquely soul-destroying food poisoning brought on by a bad oyster. I realize that my day will come at some point, yet the slight hint of danger somehow improves the flavor of each one. If hunger is the best sauce then dangerous/forbidden/rare characteristics must be the best garnish: the fully-raw beef, the mispriced bottle of wine, the wild mushrooms sold under the table...
1 comment:
As I recall, your first oyster was at the old Cafe Roux, circa 1988 or 1989.
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