Divine Bivalve
Divine Bivalve
I confess: I am an oyster fanatic. So are most people who eat oysters. I just read Oysters: A Celebration in the Raw (2016) by Jeremy Sewall and Marion Lear Swaybill, which lovingly surveys the world of oysters. The oyster is praised, revered, celebrated, worshipped and adored—by farmers and consumers alike. It always has been since early times. The Greeks loved them, as did the Romans, as did nineteenth century New Yorkers. They were overharvested to the point of extinction, eaten in huge quantities, in some places essential to life, consumed by rich and poor alike. They are a food apart, often described as “heavenly’ and “divine” (sometimes thought aphrodisiac). To eat an oyster is an event; to eat a dozen an indulgence. People lust after them. We are told that the world is our oyster—ours to enjoy and revel in. No question, oysters have been a kind of religion, with all the ecstasy and fervor of a religion. They even produce the pearl, an object of beauty nestled inside a nacreous white shell.
It takes work to grow and collect oysters. It takes skill to open and prepare them. They demand a special dressing—the mignonette (ideally, chopped shallots in white wine and champagne vinegar). They are expensive. I think they deserve a firm place in the religion of zoolatry, alongside the eagle, the elephant, the tiger, and the butterfly, among others. They seem made by God for human delight and sustenance. They are mythological (Venus emerges from one). In a church of zoolatry, they would be prominently featured. In addition, we need not concern ourselves with ethical questions: they are insentient like plants and can be consumed in good conscience. They are also eco-friendly. They do no harm and much good. They are, we might say, a little bit of heaven—how things ought to be but rarely are. When I order them (never less than a dozen) I refuse to share—not because I am particularly greedy but because they are my communion with nature, my religious ritual, my taste of paradise. Food and religion go regularly together, as in feasts, fasts, holy days, prayers, offerings. Oysterness is close to godliness.
They also remind us of our oceanic past—our affinity with the sea (cool, briny). In oysters we experience nature at its best (as far as we are concerned). There is nothing supernatural about them—they are relatively simple creatures, born of the earth. We may be tempted to think that they prove the existence of a caring God, but really, they are just products of natural selection. The wonder is that nature could produce that exquisite taste—the culinary divine. It isn’t surprising that some people happily devote their lives to oysters—the humble, but stupendous, bivalve. And yet, strangely, there is something repulsive about them, something off-putting—slimy, slithering, mucous-like, sometimes sickness-inducing. They can quickly veer into the disgusting. They remind us that nature is two-sided: for us and against us. Shucking is dangerous, requiring gloves and a special knife. You can open a bad one and have to discard it. Pleasure comes with risk. They are the divine in the disgusting and dangerous. Yet we thrill to their boneless bounty, their gustatory generosity. You don’t even need to chew them. They go down a treat, taking the work out of eating (you slurp them). Little angels, as it were. Still, there is an element of fear, as there always is with nature, a degree of ambivalence. We are bivalve ambivalent. In this they resemble the erotic, with which they are often associated. There is a lot going on in the humble oyster, despite its natural simplicity. We wouldn’t want to elevate them to the top of the zoolatrical pantheon (or would we?), but they certainly deserve a place of special honor. Ladies and gentlemen, let me present to you the almighty and deeply munificent oyster, lord of all bivalves. A round of applause, please.[1]
[1] Have I hymned them sufficiently? I have tried to do their magnificence justice, but still I feel I have not quite given them their due. There is an ineffability about the oyster.
> Have I hymned them sufficiently?
It’s a start. But not mentioning an oyster matching wine is not something I expected from you 😉
Let me share mine then: Any Chablis goes. The best pairing for West Coast oysters in my not so humble opinion. Broadly painted description of the subtle and not so subtle distinctions between oyster kinds is a another omission from the hymn, so let’s wait for a revised version…
I used to prefer a Martini, but I’ve given up drinking. I’m a Belon man myself, but I’ll take what I can get. I like them chubby (as the a said to the b).
I assume from your support for animal rights that you are a vegetarian or vegan, and therefore I wondered how you justify eating oysters. I googled and found statements such as: “most people will class an animal as capable of pain if they have a central nervous system and brain. Oysters have neither of these…. Oysters do have a basic nervous system and a small heart and internal organs. Some scientists believe that, while they may not experience pain in the same way as us, they could still respond to negative stimuli. This may indicate that they are capable of something at least resembling pain. Other scientists state, however, that such responses are reflex, rather than pain-driven.” Personally, I’d rather err on the side of not inflicting pain — or killing, which the comment I quoted doesn’t even mention.
Actually, I’m not vegetarian, though I have been in the past. I take a consequentialist position. I am against worker exploitation and deforestation, but I am not a non-consumer. Even vegans shop in places that sell meat.
I don’t think primitive sentience is sufficient to confer moral rights. What if a plantlike organism achieves a momentary sensation at some point in its life-cycle, say a faint sensation of red: does that mean it is wrong to eat it, even if you are starving? I think not.
Your “even if you are starving” is a red herring. Even the staunchest vegan should have no moral problem with eating a penguin if he is stranded in Antarctica. Other than that, I agree with your comment. When I referred to your support for “animal rights,” I was using the term loosely to include morality based on consequentialism. Back in the 1980s, when I read Peter Singer and Tom Regan, each persuaded me that he was right and that the other was wrong. I took from that the limitations of moral philosophy.
Do you think it is just straightforwardly okay to kill another human if you are starving–or several? Or several hundred dogs? It’s not a “red herring” at all.
I don’t know why you think Singer shows the limitations of moral philosophy. I would have thought it shows the power moral philosophy.
As to my “red herring” accusation, I acknowledge that every case is different. If it is a question of killing one penguin or one human, then I admit that I’m a speciesist in that situation. If there are two people, then one of them killing the other is different from a group of people voluntarily choosing lots to decide who is to be eaten.
I didn’t mean that Singer shows the limitations of moral philosophy. I meant that the fact that Singer and Regan both convinced me of their opposite positions showed the limitations of moral philosophy. But maybe it showed the limitations of me.
That doesn’t show you are a speciesist, since human and penguin differ psychologically not just zoologically.
Of course, moral philosophy has different theories, deontological or consequentialist.
I occasionally treat myself to some small Lindisfarne oysters in Saltwater restaurant in Newcastle, if I’m in town. They are delicious as a light starter and vanish in moments. Simple shallot vinegar dressing is classic and I sometimes like the merest hint of chilli flake added.
Was St Cuthbert’s bodily incorruption due in some part to the, no doubt, large quantities of ‘holy’ oysters he and the monks ingested on the Holy Island?
I can picture you now, tucking into a dozen. Canny knosh, as they say there.