Long Island Larder: Consider Oysters

I think of myself as a reasonably modern woman, so why, I wonder, do I continue to be shocked at anything at all? However, just last week I happened to mention M.F.K. Fisher to a woman in publishing who had never even heard of our greatest gastronomic writer in American literature.

It wasn't as if I'd mentioned some of our finest food writers who have fallen into almost complete oblivion, like Joseph Wechsberg, Samuel Chamberlain, Alice B. Toklas, Clementine Paddleford, A. J. Liebling, or even the great Waverly Root - a sorry state of affairs to be sure.

But where in the name of Sweet Jesus can literacy in America be headed when a great writer not three years dead is already forgotten!

Or, worse yet, never been heard of.

This of course sent me straight to my Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher collection to refresh my soul and try to atone for those who view that monumental fraud "The Frugal Gourmet" for cookery advice which ranges from trite to bad.

For those who do not wish to cook or can't read, there are the lavish picture books which at least improve the table settings for catered or take-out food.

M.F.K. Fisher - now there's a food writer who charms you right into the kitchen with her skillful anecdotes, poetry quotations, playful musings, or thoughts on such things as "Love and Death Among the Molluscs."

It was just at this point that my copy of "The Art of Eating," her collected works, opened. I had tucked a letter from her (I had the good fortune to be among her friends), dated March 1977, at that spot.

The "Molluscs" chapter begins: "An oyster leads a dreadful but exciting life."

Oyster stew is a quintessentially American specialty, from Maine to the tidewaters of Georgia.

"Indeed, his chance to live at all is slim, and if he should survive the arrows of his own outrageous fortune and in the two weeks of his carefree youth find a clean smooth place to fix on, the years afterwards are full of stress, passion, and danger. . . . Those two weeks are his one taste of vagabondage, of devil-may-care free roaming. And even they are not quite free, for during all his youth he is busy growing a strong foot and a large supply of sticky cement-like stuff. If he thought, he might wonder why. . . . Our spat has been lucky, and in great good spirits he clamps himself firmly to his home, probably forever. He is by now about one-seventy-fifth of an inch long, whatever that may be . . . and he is an oyster."

He Becomes A She

"If he is a Chincoteague, or a Lynhaven maybe, he has found a pleasant, moderately salty bottom, where the tides wash regularly and there is no filth to pollute him and no sand to choke him."

Mrs. Fisher once or twice summered in Sag Harbor and sometimes visited her ex-husband's widow, Eleanor Friede, who lived in Bridgehampton, so, though she was a Californian, she knew the Atlantic Coast oysters.

"For about a year, this oyster - our oyster - is a male, fertilizing a few hundred thousand eggs as best he can without ever knowing whether they swim by or not. Then one day, maternal longings surge between his two valves in his cold guts and gills and all his crinkly fringes. Necessity, that well-known mother, makes him one. He is a she."

Oyster-Opening

"From then on she, with occasional vacations of being masculine just to keep her hand in, bears her millions yearly. She is in the full bloom of womanhood when she is about seven."

Now when you consider the oyster, as M.F. did so movingly, are you not impelled to do something about all the effort this little spat has put into becoming the delicious mollusc he-or-she could be on your dinner plate or floating voluptuously in your creamy bowl of stew?

From time to time I re-learn how to open oysters - just so that I can have some at my disposal when a midnight attack of oyster-craving comes on. (It's in my DNA - my father was a midnight oyster stew man.)

Don't Feel Bad

Unfortunately, my resolve to keep some on hand falters all too often and, being oysterless, I lose my facility. It's the same with clam-shucking - or omelet-making, for that matter. There are some skills that definitely are not like riding a bicycle.

Get your oyster knife into the front hinge-end of the oyster and pry up, holding the wide end down with a heavy glove.

Don't feel too bad about it. Were it not you, prying it out at the peak of perfection, a relentless starfish or screw-borer or some other of the poor oyster's many predators would slowly suck the life out of it.

Oyster Stew

Most Europeans consider cooking an oyster - any oyster of any size - a desecration. But I doubt oysters were as plentiful there, at least for the last couple of centuries, as they were in those pristine waters the Pilgrims landed in and continued to feed from for generations.

Oyster stew is a quintessentially American, specifically Atlantic, specialty, from Maine to the tidewaters of Georgia. Big fat wild oysters from Three Mile Harbor, Blue Point, or Robins Island - if you can resist eating them long enough to get them into this stew - make a splendiferous supper for two on a cold winter night.

Eat it with thick slices of hot buttered toast.

20 large, fat, fresh oysters, just opened

The liquor from the oysters

3 cups whole milk

1 Tbsp. fresh chopped parsley

2 Tbsp. unsalted butter, cut in cubes

1/2 tsp. fresh Hungarian paprika

Salt to taste

Splash of dry sherry

Open the oysters over a bowl to catch their liquor and reserve both separately. In a heavy saucepan bring the milk and oyster liquor almost to the simmer, drop in the parsley and oysters, then swirl in the butter and paprika. When the oysters' edges begin to ruffle - this happens almost instantly - taste, add salt, and dish up in hot bowls. Splash a bit of sherry into each serving.

Fried Oysters

While this may sound like a contradiction in terms, it is not only possible, but one of the most delicious oyster dishes I've ever had. The idea for it came to me at a tempura bar, where the oysters were served, crisp and hot but juicy, in a paper boat. This is an intimate dish, for it must be prepared so quickly it's almost a solitary pleasure. It can be managed for two, however.

2 cups creamed spinach (recipe to follow):

1 pkg. frozen spinach, thawed and chopped

3 Tbsp. butter

2 tsp. onion, finely chopped

2 Tbsp. flour

1/8 tsp. mace or nutmeg

1/8 tsp. coarsely ground pepper

Salt

1 Tbsp. Pernod

1 cup hot milk

1 dozen large, fresh oysters in their shells

1 cup dry cracker crumbs

1 quart clean fresh vegetable oil

Lemon wedges

Make the creamed spinach: Melt the butter in a small, heavy saucepan and gently saute the onions until transparent. Stir in the flour and cook briefly. Stir in the spices and salt to taste, add hot milk, and cook until smooth. Squeeze the spinach fairly dry and stir that and the Pernod into the sauce. Set aside.

Open the oysters, reserving the liquor. On the deep bottom shell, heated in the oven, put a spoonful of hot creamed spinach. Roll the oysters in cracker crumbs, fry them about one minute, and place one lightly on top of each filled shell. Serve at once with a few thin wedges of lemon.