The Pig's Arms new North American correspondent...... shucks
In which I answer the question: Is it ever appropriate to order oysters on a first date?
Oysters are funny things, aren’t they? Right up there with the funniest things you can eat. Not counting the truly bizarre – monkey brains, blow fish, pig balls and the like…but regular food. Oysters have to be the weirdest normal food out there. I mean, let’s face it! Oysters are odd. They look like extremely large boogers laid out on ashtrays arranged on a bed of kitty litter; but we pay a fortune for them (unless you order them at Hooters or something but that’s a pretty dicey proposition, isn’t it?). You have to be a real risk taker or completely mesmerized by boobs and orange shorts to order oysters at that place.
Then again, who am I to talk? I’ve ordered oysters in Rocky Point, Mexico. Ever been there? It’s not what anyone would call a culinary experience. They have this place called the Happy Dolphin. It’s basically a three story bar crammed with tables that serves food smothered in cheese. I’ve never seen a single table of sober people at the Happy Dolphin. Last time I was there my whole floor was having a food fight. Tortillas were flying every which way. One group of middle-aged drunks spent the whole night continually tossing theirs into the ceiling fan above their heads and laughing uproariously as they shot dramatically across the room. The staff didn’t even flinch they just kept loading them with more fish-bowl sized margaritas, refilling the tortilla plates and occasionally sweeping up the mess. There were no looks of disgust or frustration just resignation pure and simple. “Gringos being gringos. What are you going to do, amigo?” they seemed to be thinking.
I did not have oysters at the Happy Dolphin and I did not throw tortillas either…well, not many.
I did have oysters at a little sidewalk café called the Blue Marlin. The food there is excellent and I found the oysters quite delectable. That is, until I got home and every newspaper heading and every TV report and every internet blog was screaming about high levels of fecal contamination in the waters near Rocky Point coupled an outbreak of Vibrio Vulnificus that was causing gastroenteritis, cholera, dysentery, colitis, flux, colic, ague, abnormal flatulence, bloody stools, tachycardia, turgor, vomiting and a hundred other horrible things. Mmm…that’s making me hungry just thinking about it.
Some reports say 99% of the oysters in the Gulf Coast are contaminated with Vibrio Vulnificus…and I am assuming that the Sea of Cortez around Rocky Point is pretty much the same percentage and before you ask, no, Tabasco won’t kill the bacteria and neither will tequila. Think about it. 99% is right around the same percentage you have of losing in Vegas. I don’t know about you but I don’t like those odds.
While we are talking percentages, I’ve read that 60% of the people treated for oyster-related illness are men. I don’t think that necessarily proves that women are stronger than men. I think it proves that more men are stupid enough to believe that oysters are an aphrodisiac or that men are more desperate to try an aphrodisiac than women. Honestly, who really believes that a snotty little mollusk will make you “strong like bull in the sack?” Same people who think that rhino horn will do the trick probably.
I do want to go on record here…this is not the reason I like oysters. My love of oysters is hereditary. I grew up on the things. Back in Australia in the 70s oysters were king. We could get them everywhere. I’m serious we could quite literally drive into a gas station (well, petrol station) and say “Oy, mate! Fill ‘er up and while you’re at it check me oil and I think one of me tyres is a bit flat too. Oh, and top off the washer fluid, will ya? Oh, yeah… and we’ll take two dozen oysters. Yeah, go ahead and shuck em we’re gonna eat them in the car.” It’s true…google meribula oysters petrol if you don’t believe me.
They have good oysters down under. Small but tasty. The first time we came to the States (in 1977) we arrived in San Francisco and went straight to Fisherman’s Wharf and ordered an oysters appertizer. We couldn’t believe what they carried out to us…two or three inches long they were. Great slabs of oyster meat! We thought we’d died and gone to heaven. Then we tasted them. Wasn’t pretty. I’ve had plenty of good oysters stateside since then but that was not a good day. My mum, she’s 80 now, but she still talks about the horror of it.
“We ordered oysters in San Francisco, it was” she’ll say. “Oh, what was the name of the place? Filene’s Basement, I think.”
“No mum, that’s the place you went shopping in Boston.”
“Oh yes, marvelous place. We had to get coats in San Francisco. It was so cold. Even in summer! That San Francisco is so dirty. Not as dirty as New York City but still not like Melbourne. Well, Melbourne does have some dirty spots I suppose, don’t you think?”
“What about the oysters, mum?”
“Oh, they were terrible, weren’t they? Flabby, tasteless, horrible, yuck! Not like we have here in Australia. You see, our oysters are much smaller but they are sweet and delicious…” Yes, that’s right…my mother is Dame Edna Everage. So now you know where I get it from…
Anyway, the point is I don’t eat oysters to get feeling all sexy or anything like that. I really do like how they taste. But sometimes it is hard to convince people of that. Ever order oysters on a first date? The girl will be all “Uh-uh, no way buddy!” She will immediately be all up in your face, wagging her finger and doing that thing where they kind of move their head independent of their shoulders in a threatening way as if to say “You did not just do that! You did not just order oysters! Not with me! Not on a first date!” Men wont do that if the girl orders oysters, of course. No girls, if you order oysters on a first date he will just assume you’re a slut. So, all in all, it’s better to wait a while before going the for the old oysters on the half shell.
Come to think of it, there’s really only one good time to order oysters: Valentine’s Day. Picture it…a nice romantic dinner, both of you all dressed to the nines, a nice bottle of wine chilling by the table. You look at her and see desire in her heart. That’s the night to order oysters. Just make sure you don’t happen to be having this dinner at Hooters or in Mexico because if you are you won’t be “getting it on” later that night you’ll be in the bathroom alternately puking your guts out and suffering from horrendous bouts of explosive diarrhea. Bon appétit!
I’m not slow. It’s just that sometimes it takes me a little longer that’s all.
I’m going to note that while this piece is on oysters, it devotes a certain amount of space to the aphrodisiac qualities of same. Further; the author is wearing a “Spanish Fly” T shirt, which to my mind rather gives the game away.
What’s the bet Nev’s got Viagra in his pocket as he yaffles that fat oyster.
Nev, mate, you might be overdoing it. Who can tell you if your friends can’t?
LikeLike
You got me…this whole thing was a ruse cleverly designed to lure you all in so I could offer you AMZING DIZCOUNTS ON GENERIC MEXICAN VIAGRA AND CIALIS!!! HUGE DISCOUNTS FOR ORDERS OF 1000 OR MORE!!!
LikeLike
Fat chance – or chance fat ?
LikeLike
Nev,
Good oyster yarn!
And I completely agree with your take on Melbourne oysters vs. Hooters ( the restaurant). Then again, Melbourne also has the best fish ‘n chips, not to mention lobsters. Oh, and Jiffy donuts. They do still have Jiffy donuts?
My wife will not be permitted to read this or we’ll never go back to Rocky Point!!
LikeLike
Ha! Melbourne oysters vs. Hooters (the restaurant)…glad you added the parentheses. Think they still have Jiffy donuts. I know they do have hot jam donuts at all the footy games. Those are irresistible!
Rocky Point is OK…Lisa reminded me this weekend that the drunken restaurant is called the Friendly Dolphin by the way but I’m sure you’ve been there before.
LikeLike
Neville, that’s a big oyster on your head, expensive?
LikeLike
That’s the famous Scottish “Flat Cap” oyster. Its natural habitat is along the “tweed” coasts of “The Little Minch” between the Inner and Outer Hebrides. It is the only oyster to have developed a camouflage system so that it may blend into its “tweed” background.
What Neville hasn’t told you is that he and his “Flat Cap” have joined in a symbiotic relationship in a scientific first seeking to develop a multispecies approach to climate change; oysters being very sensitive to small changes in their environment. The oyster, being aware that its kind may yet go into that dark night of extinction, is passing on to Neville the “Oyster Narrative”, a history of the “Flat Cap” incorporating the corpus of Oyster knowledge. Learning the grammar was difficult for Neville as “Oyster” doesn’t have that many verbs, but he eventually mastered it and the very slippery pronunciation.
Neville and his oyster met when Neville was working on a “colour” piece for Scottish Tourism and they’ve been inseparable companions and collaborators ever since. There is only one difficulty with their relationship and that is that the “Flat Cap”, sensing Neville’s hair tonic as an irritant, has begun to cover the top of Neville’s head with a lustrous nacre covering of iridescent mother of pearl. Regular bi-monthly visits to a local jeweller for removal and re-use has created a modest income stream that helps to defray the cost of the project.
Well done and good luck Neville and “Flat Cap”
LikeLike
Ooops, I misread that as “Cat Flap” Oyster the first time around, Waz. Pardon Me !
LikeLike
Whereas this comment needs no oyster to turn it into a pearl.
[No Warrigal, this is not a case of slap me hard enough and I schmooze.]
LikeLike
My partner has haemachromatosis (a genetic disorder which, coincidentally, suggests that her ancestors lived through the Black Death). The iron stays attached to her red blood cells, so she has to be bled every so often to keep her iron levels down. Vibrio Vulnificus is killed by normal human blood, but it thrives in iron-rich blood like hers, and can kill. So no oysters. Ever.
Almost ever.
(PS Emmjay: did you get my reply?)
LikeLike
Hi Chris,
Not yet, I’m struggling with a work deadline this morning – and trying to remember how to dig out the Emails over at the pub :-). I’ll try to get there at lunchtime.
Regards,
Emm
LikeLike
Good to see you here Chris.
I miss your episodes on Unleashed.
Hope the dog is well!! Presumably you will let us all know in a story here?
regards
Formally–and sometimes Jayell/ Julian London/Hadron Collider Esq.
LikeLike
Jules, were you ever Dr Julius Strangepork?
LikeLike
Hung here’s a quiz for you.
No to your question, but….killin what’s inside of you.
Name that song?
LikeLike
Chris, welcome from me and Gerard too.I’m missing the talk about food and cooking.
LikeLike
And guitars
LikeLike
Hey Chris, good to see you here. Still have your chicken recipe. Are you still writing on UL? Like to write here, your stuff was always top rate.
LikeLike
I guess it is rather a stretch to think anyone would be silly enough to have a first date or any date for that matter at Hooters…but Hooters do serve Oysters (or at least they did last time I was in one last century). Still I think when doling out advice once should be careful to speak to as many possibilities as possible.
I like the idea of an etiquette/advice column. A perfect starting place for my somewhat random meanderings.
I must pick up The Lemon Table now. I am a big Barnes fan too and will throw England, England into the mix of good Barnes reads.
Cheers for now. It’s a bit early for a Trotter’s Ale yet so I’ll comeback tonight for one.
LikeLike
“England, England” sits along with Burgess’ “1985” and Ballard’s more recent “Kingdom Come” as favourite critiques of post imperial GB.
Another of our number would love it too, what with “Sir Jack Pitman” and his plan convert the Isle Of White into the “real” England. (I’m sure that would find a harmony with JL’s ocassional reminiscences.) Similar ideas as Eco in his collection of essays “Faith in Fakes”. Barnes thesis being, perhaps a little simplistically, that England has lost its authenticity and has become a kind of over-promoted “tea at four”, “grenadier guard”, “Churchill’s cigar”, “Tower Bridge and The Houses of Parliament” parody of itself; open all hours with souvenirs available on your way out.
LikeLike
Isle of Wight??
Actually there was briefly a Capital there. At Yarmouth methinks.
King John, I think had an army/navy there to go somewhere. France I suppose. It was the only port on the Island once.
There’s a couple of churches that go back to the 12 hundreds.
And back in AD the Roman’s were there. They called it Vectis…..Which is now the name of the IOW bus co, as well as quite a few businesses.
LikeLike
Victoria and Albert built a beautiful house at East Cowes.
Osborne House is enchanting, and was of course Victoria’s Home. Remember the film about Queen Victoria. Well I am sure that part was set in the House.
Here is a painting of Brown. And if you note it is at Osborne House, even though he was Scottish.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown_%28servant%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs._Brown
Some 23/4 years ago I watched Swan Lake, in the grounds there, on a summers eve. It was divine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_House
LikeLike
Sorry, I didn’t explain what I was thinking about. It was Victoria and her gamekeeper, supposed lover.
LikeLike
I lived in an Osborne Ave once. In a house. Not in the street. Not that one anyhoo.
That fillum was fantabulous if you are referring to the flick about the gilly to Queen Victoria’s husband and then the Queen’s helpmate, Brown, played by (acted by – played sounds like chicken feed) Billy Connolly.
LikeLike
Dear Neville,
Your problem would probably be solved by looking for first dates somewhere just a smidgin more sophisticated than Hooters.
Yours,
Abby (aka Voice)
LikeLike
Or should that have been Miss Manners? Perhaps we need a Pigs Arms etiquette page to handle these difficult social questions.
LikeLike
Ah! Oysters!
Mrs At and I were still in our wooing days. We decided to give her girlfriend and her girlfriend’s brother a treat. I took over. No problem, sweetheart.
The Top Of The Town restaurant in Melbourne back then (I’m not giving out that much info!) was a swish place and it was run by a Greek who had advertised profusely in the Greek press. I rang him up and made all the arrangements. Snails and a few other douvres for entrees.
We began eating. The girlfriend began eating the snails with great gusto, such a great gusto in fact that I found a little surprising. Back then, an anglo into snails? It was hard to believe but there she was, plucking them out of their shell and chomping into them like there was no tomorrow. At the ninth or so (out of the dozen), I asked her if she knew what she was eating. Mind you, she was only a kid of around 17 years or so. “Yes, ” she said with utter confidence. “They’re oysters, aren’t they?”
Mrs At took over from there. I didn’t dare. When the girlfriend found out what they were she pushed the plate away from her in utter disgust.
The theatrics and the pleas for logic made it for a very exciting evening.
It took my calling the wandering Greek guitarist to sing her a funny Greek song to retrieve her lost smile.
Oysters, aren’t they?
Delicious!
LikeLike
Hey Neville, good fun story, I like it and oh yeah and I like oysters. In South Australia we get good oysters out of the gulf.
LikeLike
A Walrus overheard in Lewis Carroll’s oyster bar…
“A loaf of bread, the Walrus said,
Is what we chiefly need:
Pepper and vinegar besides
Are very good indeed —
Now if you’re ready, Oysters, dear,
We can begin to feed!”
And just for JL, this one from Julian Barnes, one of my favourite writers…,
“The Sixties were an oyster decade: slippery, luxurious and reportedly aphrodisiac, they slipped down the historical throat without touching the sides”
I’m not particularly fond of oysters natural, I don’t mind a smoked oyster on a Jatz and Sche makes these oyster nibbles with bacon and anise that are scrumptious but beyond that I’m unqualified to comment.
I loved the piece Neville. Come back often. We need you here.
LikeLike
Mirriyuula, funny you should mention Julian Barnes as only last night I started reading one of his books (my first), The Lemon Table. It contains eleven short stories, I’m half way through the first one;pretty good so far…
Have you read The Lemon Table? It was given to me as a Christmas present , I have a feeling that Gerard might like this one too.
LikeLike
Loved it. A “must read” for those of us entering our twilight years with bad grace and a broken heart.
I liked “Arthur and George” too but my favourite Barnes are “Flaubert’s Parrot” and “A History Of The World In 10 1/2 Chapters” and for very personal reasons “Staring At The Sun”. I also liked his novella “The Porcupine”. It had very strong affinities with “The Trial” by Kafka and a certain Conradian tone that suited me very well.
LikeLike
A good read Helvi is the Friday Racing Guide for Saturday’s meeting. It has lots of information, twists and turns and some real cliffhangers
LikeLike
Good, the book even looks like a ‘must read’, a nice big lemon on the hard cover and nice big writing and lovely smooth pages. I’ll get to the others later on…
LikeLike
Hungie, are there any pictures in your racing guide, just in case I get bored with the writing ?
LikeLike
No, sorry H 😦
LikeLike
Ah…the old oyster in the hanky trick almost as good as Bazza McKenzie’s famous eating fruit salad out of an air sikkie bag gag.
Thanks for the comments folks. Happy to be here.
LikeLike
Good one, Neville! The best Australia day story so far; to go all misty eyed over Aussie oysters, THAT I can understand…
Oi, oi oi, Aussie oyster!
LikeLike
Oysters are the very essence of lending themselves to humor. Back at East Sydney Tech, years ago, they had a canteen which sometimes had fresh oysters on the menu.
I bought half a dozen with chips and secreted one of the oysters in my handkerchief. I pretended to blow my nose and then opened the hankie and, ha,ha ha showed it to the ha,ha,ha canteen girl, ha hoi, hoi, hoot, hoot.
She always looked very sternly at me from then on.
I don’t play around with oysters anymore. Those days are over.
LikeLike
Torking about humour and oysters, are ye all too young to have seen The Stork?
Bruce Spence and Jacki Weaver. Bruce shoves a couple of smoked ones up his nostrils as he serves the “la-di-das” during a party.
That’s a long time ago now… and my Alzheimers won’t let me remember much more about the filum. Jacki looked very stunning and Storky looked… very tall!
I remember feeling good about it because it was a satire kicking the “la-da-das” in the bum.
I don’t remember anything else about Spence… maybe he’s acted on a stage somewhere. And Jacki? I must google these two when I get a chance.
But oysters in the nostrils! Who coulda thunk it, ey?
LikeLike
Bruce lived not far from us in Balmain, I remember he once came to one of our parties. We often saw him around, you could not miss him for all that tallness. He might have done other things but also kept acting…
LikeLike
I remember Stork very well…Bruce did keep up the acting. Probably most famously as the copter pilot in the Mad max series.
LikeLike
Yes, I do remember the Stork, ‘Mou. He was a co-habitant of Balmain with Gez, Helvi and me.(Bruce probably still lives there). Your memory of the smoked oyster in the nostril is truly impressive. I had long misplaced that bit of affrontery.
He was in one of the Mad Max films and I’ve seen him in a few other gigs too – names not currently recoverable from deep cortical memory.
In the flesh, Bruce is a sky scraper. Mental image of him having a chin wag on Darling Street with David Williamson. Now that was something for the rest of us to look up to – or “up to which we looked” – (for the Australian Society of Grammarian Pedants.
The enhanced joke was that Jackie Weaver stands at the other extreme, altitudinally. Together – huge visal gag.
LikeLike
I’ll never forget it! Love oysters and snails (in garlic butter).
LikeLike