What do grilled oysters taste like

There is nothing quite like them. Yet something about oysters resists every attempt to describe them. Because an oyster, like a lover, first captures you by bewitching your mind. The Oyster Conversion Experience is remarkably consistent among individuals, genders, and generations. You are an adolescent. You are in the company of adults, among whom you desperately want to be accepted.

You are presented with an oyster, you overcome your initial fear or revulsion, take the plunge, and afterward feel brave and proud and relieved.

You want to do it again. Some pleasures in life are immediate. Ice cream , sex, and crack all plug straight into our limbic system and get those dopamine centers firing. In fact, no thought is required at all. Other pleasures sneak up on you. Poetry, cooking , cross-country skiing. They may even feel like a challenge at the time. Only afterward do you realize how alive and satisfied you felt. Oysters belong to the latter club. When you eat oysters, you wake up.

Your senses become sharper—touch and smell and sight as well as taste. You carefully unlock the oyster, then make sure it is good before eating it. Like a hunter, you stay focused, alive to the world and the signals it sends you.

You are fully present and engaged, not watching football while absentmindedly slapping nachos in your mouth.

Many oyster lovers mention the importance of ritual: the shucking of the oysters ; the anointing with sauces; the lifting and tilting of the shells; the drinking of the liquor before, during, or after; and then the laying of the downturned shells back on the plate. Done properly, ritual still serves its ancient purpose—to raise awareness.

Like the Japanese tea ceremony , a good oyster ritual has a Zen spirit. It allows you to mask the world and live briefly in the here and now. And, like the Japanese tea ceremony, it is art as much as consumption. Its sensual pleasures go beyond taste. There are the soft purple, green, and pink watercolors of the shell; the need to read its geometry in order to open it easily. And once open, there is the absolute contrast of the oyster and the shell.

Such softness within such hardness. Art is something we experience not to fill any basic needs but instead to learn about ourselves and our connections to the world. Food is rarely art. We eat to fill our bellies.

We eat to sustain ourselves. We eat because we must. Oysters come pretty close to breaking this connection. No one fills up on them.

They are taste sundered from satiation. We do not eat them to satisfy any needs—except for our need to experience. Part of the pleasure in eating an oyster is paying attention to this other creature, respecting it.

By the time you have shucked the oyster, examined it, and slurped it, you have gotten to know that oyster pretty darned well. As with lovers, you can only shower that kind of attention on so many. They are quietly, fully adult. It wasn't like I thought it was going to be. It was better! It was easy! I was lookin' at it. That's what always turns me off: the look. When I put it in my mouth, I put a couple, little chews on it and swallowed it up. Avery Bates. Preference: "You might say I'm the Forrest Gump of oysters.

I love them just about any way you cook them. You don't want to overcook it and you don't want to under cook it. You can read more on just how Bates, a retired fisherman, loves his oysters. Brian Kelly. David Holloway. Preference: "Some of the best oysters I've ever eaten were just hand-picked off Dauphin Island right around Thanksgiving.

Just picked them up and washed them. That's a nice way of saying how old I am. I like them all kinds of ways, but with some of these new boutique farmed oysters, raw is probably the best way to eat 'em.

You really can taste the ocean. You can taste the Gulf. You can taste the water that they were raised in and get a sense of place. I think Gulf oysters are the best in the world. Our oysters. I've heard people who won't eat oysters at all. Or they won't eat 'em raw, but they eat 'em fried, won't eat 'em fried, but they eat 'em raw. That's all a factor of the way they've been raised eating them. It's not the holidays without oysters in this part of the world. It's not really a holiday party, in a larger sense, without some oyster presence.

How do you like your oysters? One of the most popular ways to cook oysters is poaching them. The amount of each ingredient will vary depending on the number of oysters being cooked at once. Tips for cooking oysters: Shuck the oysters first. This will make it easier to eat them once they have been cooked and removed from their shells. Oyster shucking knives can be purchased at most stores that specialize in kitchen utensils or online, as well as many dive shops if you plan on cooking oysters at home.

Oyster cooking instructions vary depending on the desired outcome of each batch, but they are usually boiled for five minutes or until just cooked through. Do not boil them longer than ten minutes, or else they will become tough and chewy.

How to Store Oysters? Oysters can be stored in the refrigerator for up to two days. If you do not eat your oysters within 24 hours, we recommend using an ice bath to store them. How to Find and Choose Oysters? Oysters are a diverse group of mostly filter-feeding bivalves. Oysters can be found in many places around the world. You can also tell from the smell if an oyster is fresh. Beware of any odors that resemble a sulfuric scent — this may indicate spoilage.

Conclusion In conclusion, oysters are a great option for any person. Sharing is caring! We hungrily got into our car to seek it out. Smoking has long been used as a method to preserve oysters for canning. Traditionally, these oysters were spread out and dried under the rays of the hot sun, followed by smoking with seaweed, which amplified the oceany flavor.

The technique used at t he Marshall Store skips the drying and the seaweed stage. The oysters are first shucked and drained of liquor. Our oysters arrived on a wooden tray, served on crostini with a bit of soft goat cheese and pickled red onions.

Though they were lightly cooked, they were still every bit as juicy and tender as the fresh ones.