Preparation
“What is an oyster, if not the perfect food?” Anthony Bourdain wrote in the second chapter of his book A Cook’s Tour. We couldn’t agree more—but how do you feel about oysters?
Do oysters conjure up a vacation, an outdoor table under an umbrella, glistening oysters on the half-shell, your worries far away? Or are they a memory of a visit to the grand old Oyster Bar in New York where you tasted oysters Rockefeller for the first time, creamy under a warm blanket of spinach and Hollandaise? Oysters imply celebration—even if you pulled them off a rock and slurped them with only waves for company.
The question with oysters is how to prepare them: Au naturel or all dressed up? The purist’s approach is delightful: Raw, with a wedge of lemon and a slice of buttered bread. Or try Oysters on the Half Shell with Mignonette, pictured above. The smaller you mince the pieces of shallot, the better the mignonette for your raw oysters will be. The sharp little onions add both sweetness and bite to the vinegar, balanced with the fragrance of pink peppercorns.
You could bake or fry them to tuck into rolls for po’ boys, or roast them over open coals. And there are the old-school dishes that deserve serious revival, like oyster stew (“a supper to sleep on” wrote American food writer MFK Fisher in Consider the Oyster), oysters casino, and oyster dressing.
Now that we’ve gotten you hungry for oysters, try one of these delicious ways to prepare them.
