This topic came up last night after I inquired of a friend what the crazy, Klingon-looking utensil is in my utensil drawer (my roommate owns it, I guess). He informed me that is an oyster shucking knife. Well, anyway, I mentioned that I had heard that raw oysters are actually still alive when you slurp them down, as evidenced by the fact that when you squirt lemon juice on them, they wince (for lack of a better term), although I’ve never seen this myself.
My friend says that they die upon being ripped out of their shell, and this sounds plausible. I’m skeptical of the whole idea, but I’m curious what others think. Thanks!
This is almost correct: you’re supposed to touch them with the lemon slice, not squirt them with the juice. If they wince, they’re fresh and safe to eat.
I don’t think they die right away when being ripped out of their shell. I wouldn’t doubt they are alive, maybe in a state of shock, when you slurp them down.
Cutting bivalve molluscs free of their shells is, generally speaking, not immediately fatal to them, because you’re only cutting ligaments and the outer parts of the mantle; also, what it means to be alive and responsive is (for a mollusc) a rather less complex set of factors than it is for, say, a large mammal
It’s really not all that disgusting. And you haven’t really lived until you’ve had fresh raw oysters. drool (Plus, there’s something primordially satisying about eating something still alive.)
It’s definitely a New Year’s Eve hand slicer. One of the major cause of medical emergencies in France on this day.
Slurp? You’re supposed to munch them, or else how will you feel the taste? I was given a bad look when I slurped them as a child, as if I was wasting perfectly good food.
Yes, they’re alive and…err…not so well. You can also stab them slightly with a fork to check their…err… health before eating them if you don’t like lemon on oysters. They will retract.
Here’s a warning passed down from my grandfather… Long, long ago, he went out to eat with some friends, one of whom ate a large number of raw oysters without chewing them. They formed into hard balls in his stomach and he died.
They were fresh. Honestly, I didn’t try chewing them since I almost threw up when they entered my mouth and had to choke them down whole. I tried two more after the first one just to make sure I didn’t like them. Same thing.
Hey! I had my very first fresh oyster yesterday. I hope it was fresh, anyway. It was sitting in its shell anyway, though cut free of it. It was the almost-ideal time to try them (I was at a very nice Thanksgiving brunch) for there they were, with lemon and some sauce or something, and I could just try one, and not have to order an entire serving for myself.
Not so ideal in that it was at the end of the meal when I finally got adventurous, and I was a little bit full.
I wasn’t crazy about the swallowing them whole, but that’s what I’d read that one was supposed to do, so that is what I did.
It tasted like the ocean smells and of lemon.
I can’t get over the texture, though, and the visual of them. Having now tried one, I am content with not needing to try another one for another twenty years or so.
I’m not a raw shellfish kind of gal. Gimme halibut!
