Text | Jiang Yinlong
Oysters became synonymous with eroticism under the influence of medieval European culture (why is it synonymous with eroticism?). After several generations of Caesar, Napoleon, and italian "love saint" Giacomo Casanova, "eating oysters" has become no longer pure. But culture has never been a victor in the face of the human gut—even the inextricable erotic taste can't stop diners from gluttony in the face of oysters.
There is really no shortage of oysters in European oil paintings...
The first literary writer in European history to systematically study oysters was none other than Alexandre Dumas. In fact, in the minds of the French, Dumas is first and foremost a novelist or a gourmet, and it is really not so easy to decide - especially after Dumas ate almost all the restaurants in Paris in his later years, first wrote food reviews and created the Dictionary of Dumas Cuisine.
Yes, Dumas is also a foodie but I guess you've only seen The Count of Monte Cristo.
As a gourmand who accidentally wrote a world famous book, Dumas also made a very serious and detailed examination of oysters. In Dumas's eyes, the earliest cultural metaphor for oysters was associated with a vote in ancient Greece: around the second century BC, Athens had a philosopher, writer and music theorist Aristids Quintilean. Apparently, the philosopher was not popular with the Athenians, and the members of the city-state proposed a vote on whether to expel Aristides Quentilian from the city by a vote, and the vote was the oyster shell. An oyster shell represented a vote in favor of exile, and the outraged Aristids Quentillian left amid accusations that "I am tired of calling Aristides the embodiment of justice."
Socrates: Give me this trick again?
Aristids Quintilian, who had said that "whoever wants to see all things under the heavens must travel the world or stay in Rome", naturally did not care about this "Socratic" vote, and Dumas's evidence continued. Compared with the Athenians, the Romans obviously had a little more love and reverence for oysters, so much so that they reached the point of "no oysters and no seats". In addition, the Romans also ranked oysters according to their origin – the best oysters are naturally produced in the British Isles, otherwise how could Caesar have obsessed with British oysters?
Caesar: The one who gets the oysters gets the harem... No, the world
At the end of the "Oyster Chapter" of Dumas's Gastronomic Dictionary, Dumas summed up the way oysters are eaten: "The way oysters are eaten is the same all over the world, and it is so simple. Peel off the shell, pull it out, pour a few drops of lemon juice, swallow it in one gulp... The most discerning gourmets mix vinegar, pepper and green onion into a sauce, dip and swallow. Others — which I thought were true oyster lovers — didn't dip anything and swallowed them raw. ”
Never been to China limits your imagination, Dumas!
France is a famous gastronomic kingdom, but the imagination in eating methods is obviously not the same as that of Chinese. Dumas can say that "oysters are eaten the same all over the world", and the word "world" here has to be changed to "the world outside China" - ginger and shallots, garlic, frying, baking, charcoal, pan-frying, sauce, sauce... Dumas would never have imagined that on the other side of Eurasia, humans had exhausted the possibilities of oysters in the culinary world.
There are 100 oysters, 99 in China
It is undeniable that true oyster lovers do generally prefer to eat raw, and the taste of oysters lies in its freshness. Fresh oyster meat is plump, round, fragrant, and preferably full of seawater. Oysters are as wonderful as tea leaves, different tides, temperatures, climates will make the oysters emit different flavors: sweet, salty, earthy, nutty, metallic... These secrets are hidden in the sea waters trapped in the oyster shells and will never be missed by veteran gourmets.
Different oysters have different tastes, hmmm...
Take an oyster and pair it with a glass of champagne to match the top steak with red wine. The so-called white wine with white meat, red wine with red meat, but Irish oysters with black beer is also a must, of course, this may inevitably have the risk of gout. There is also an unwritten rule when eating oysters: May and August is the breeding season for oysters in the northern hemisphere, and there is no R letter in the name of these four months, so it is called "no R no food" - the Italian "love saint" Giacomo Casanova claims to eat forty oysters raw every day, but does not know how to solve the "oyster famine" in these months.
Oysters with champagne
As a cross-cultural delicacy on the table, oysters bring even more imprints to humans. American food writer Fisher wrote a "Love Letter to Oysters", which began by quoting two sages:
The first person to eat oysters was bold enough. - Swift, "Gentle Conversation"
Like an oyster, mysterious, self-sufficient, and lonely. - Dickens, "A Christmas Carol"
Perhaps even more inspiring "Oyster Words", as Shakespeare said in The Merry Wives of Windsor: "The world is my oyster." This tense line is originally a threat, but in the flow of culture, it gradually takes on the meaning of "the world is full of opportunities"—Chris Gardner said in his autobiography "When Happiness Knocks": "The world is full of opportunities." The world is your oyster. It's up to you to find the pearls）。 ”
Stills from "The Merry Ladies of Windsor"
However, in front of the oysters, you don't have to care about the rhetoric. Shout out "The oyster is my world"! In the eyes of food, there is no right or wrong, just taste.