Fried Oysters

Anna's face is probably twisting in disgust at the mere title, but oysters do not always have to be slurped raw from the half shell with a spicy sauce. Like any other shellfish, they can be fried, boiled, marinated, smoked, grilled or steamed. I eat raw oysters too if someone offers them, but I cannot honestly claim to enjoy their salty, slimy consistency much. Whether you eat oysters raw or cooked, though, it is worth remembering the slogan of Legal Sea Foods, the Boston seafood chain: "If it isn't fresh, it isn't Legal!"

I was touring New Zealand in a hired car and happened to drive past the Ohiwa Oyster Farm on the shore of the Bay of Plenty, near the small town of Whakatane, where I ended up spending New Year's Eve. I very nearly missed it. I had driven some five kilometres past before I stopped to read the Lonely Planet and the mention caught my eye. The day's driving was nearly done and I was getting a little peckish anyway, so I made a U-turn to have a look at this sight as well.

At the stall on the shore there was a long queue of local-looking customers, from which I concluded the food must be good. After a quarter of an hour in the queue I ordered a dozen oysters, and after a short wait I was slightly taken aback to be handed a warm parcel wrapped in newspaper. I thought I had ordered raw oysters, but since I had not explicitly asked for them raw, I got them the way the locals take for granted, battered and deep-fried. I resigned myself to my fate, picked a table on the shore, unwrapped the parcel and, a little sceptically, began popping oyster nuggets into my mouth. Under the white wrapping paper was the local paper, and the fat had spotted it before I had properly started. My doubts turned to delight in the blink of an eye as the wonderfully tasty, greasy batter met the oyster inside, bursting with the salt of the sea. Instead of a dozen I got a good twenty oysters, and my little snack turned into a filling meal.

Anna is probably still not convinced. The second picture is from our trip together to the American South a year ago, through Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. We managed to visit New Orleans before the hurricane laid it waste. The local speciality is the po'boy, a sandwich often filled with seafood. It got its name in 1929, when the New Orleans streetcar workers were on strike for four months and these "poor boys" were given free sandwiches by a restaurant owner.

Anna and I naturally both wanted to try these funny-sounding sandwiches, and we each ordered an oyster po'boy. What we got was bland white bread holding a lettuce leaf, a couple of slices of tomato and oysters deep-fried until they were scorched and tasteless. The meal was a forgettable disappointment, which is why the warm parcel in New Zealand gave me a fright at first. Unlike the ones in Louisiana, though, these oysters were delicious. Honestly, truly.