Oysters

If you eat snails, frogs’ legs, brains, sheeps’ eyes and other assorted gruesome gunk, you are likely to be a devotee of oysters.  What all these morsels have in common, it seems to me, is a certain quality of slime that should render them unfit for human consumption. 

On the contrary, they are highly sought after delicacies and among them the oyster may well be considered the consummate confection.  This might have something to do with its reputation as an aphrodisiac.  Casanova is alleged to have consumed fifty of the little blighters a day, but to my mind this doesn’t prove anything.  He was clearly just a bloke who never knew when enough was enough.  Scientific theories for the mollusc’s alleged libido boosting powers abound.  Although, as with most scientific theories, there has been no general consensus, it is thought that the abundance of amino acids and high zinc content may stimulate the production of testosterone.  I’m not sure whether any studies have been done.  No doubt there’d be plenty of aspiring Casanovas eager to offer themselves as research subjects.   

Notwithstanding hormonal surges or the lack thereof, the number of ostreaphiles (oyster lovers) in the world is still high.  Indeed, according to some pundits, the slimy morsels are experiencing a resurgence in popularity.  This must come as good news to Tasmania’s oyster farmers, a number of whom operate out of St Helen’s, on Tasmania’s east coast.  St Helen’s lies between Bicheno and Binalong Bay and as well as being known for its oysters, it is promoted as the game fishing capital of Tasmania.  We passed through here on our way to Binalong Bay, and as we approached the town were attracted by a throng of fishing boats of all shapes, sizes and colours tied up at the wharf in George’s Bay.  Even for those, like us, whose closest encounters with fishing have been hanging a line over a jetty once or twice in our youth, there is something fascinating about fishing boats, so of course we had to have a closer look. 

Not far outside the town was a large oyster farm, at which there was little evidence of oysters, but presumably they were growing away beneath the surface. 

Other than the occasional oyster Kilpatrick, I am not an oyster aficionado and certainly not appreciative of their au naturel qualities.  Those who are say gulping one off the shell is like that first zingy plunge into the sea.  To me it feels more like coming up with a mouth full of seaweed.  Size counts too.  They don’t want to be too big, otherwise, as the novelist Thackeray is reported to have said, you may end up feeling like you’ve swallowed a baby.

As I am not only an ostreaphobe but a fishophobe as well, the marine harvesting activities of St Helen’s were a bit lost on me.  However it is good to see how areas of Tasmania such as St Helen’s are really capitalizing on their pristine and unspoiled environment to produce some of the highest quality foods and wines in the nation, oysters being just one of these.  This is giving a much needed boost to the tourism industry, with the island now being strongly (and deservedly) marketed as a foodie paradise.  So, despite eschewing the fruits of the sea, I was able to indulge in plenty of other gastronomic treats, about which more later.