Oyster Love
Oysters are yummy. I know that because I was told so for many years, yet I couldn’t stand them, and no human being should eat them, but by my late twenties, I ate them happily. Call it coming-of-age. Somebody handed me a shell with a little white growth on it, and, luckily, alcohol wasn’t far. I drank the sluggy sea lugie and it’s cold amniotic fluid, rinsing my throat clean with Sauza or whatever cheap thing we had. A quick shiver in my thorax and it was over. Since then, oysters are not so spare, but a function of availability. If they’re on the menu, I’m having them. Now I live in Portland, and oysters are as common as Krispy Kreme in Kentucky, Popeye’s in Virginia. They’re on every corner, not even advertised, because everyone knows you can order them at a hardware store. You can walk into Meineke Muffler and have a half dozen Hood’s with a glass of chard.
But I’ve slowed down my oyster eating in recent years.
Summer of ’05, I went oyster crazy and bought a quart of fresh Hama Hama’s from Washington. They had to be eaten right away or they’d go bad, so I did, and it never occurred to me that oysters have no fiber at all. They were good, though, and one felt a wild sexuality eating them. You felt manly for conquering a fear of something so gross and slimy. Face it, oysters, to be sure, look and feel like something you’ve coughed up in one of those lung-clearing, end of a bad cold coughing spells, put over ice, then dipped in some sauce and down-the-hatch. The taste is a little like sweet, raw, live mollusk with a good bite that’s hard to put words on—maybe that’s the oyster’s little pipi bag. With a good wine and a dipping sauce of horseradish and ketchup, a little lemon and dill, you can eat three or four a day until your shit becomes so impacted and claylike you’re stuck on the pot in a gleefull, constapatory clench.
And so for a week my diet was wine, oysters, crab and salmon, and I paid dearly. My brain felt like someone shat in my head, gave it neurons and called it good. My stomach felt like a sockfull of marbles was lodged there. I only found relief in my Aunt’s backyard where she kept a wicker swingset, which I ate, and pooped like a decapitated fire hydrant. The end.
But I’ve slowed down my oyster eating in recent years.
Summer of ’05, I went oyster crazy and bought a quart of fresh Hama Hama’s from Washington. They had to be eaten right away or they’d go bad, so I did, and it never occurred to me that oysters have no fiber at all. They were good, though, and one felt a wild sexuality eating them. You felt manly for conquering a fear of something so gross and slimy. Face it, oysters, to be sure, look and feel like something you’ve coughed up in one of those lung-clearing, end of a bad cold coughing spells, put over ice, then dipped in some sauce and down-the-hatch. The taste is a little like sweet, raw, live mollusk with a good bite that’s hard to put words on—maybe that’s the oyster’s little pipi bag. With a good wine and a dipping sauce of horseradish and ketchup, a little lemon and dill, you can eat three or four a day until your shit becomes so impacted and claylike you’re stuck on the pot in a gleefull, constapatory clench.
And so for a week my diet was wine, oysters, crab and salmon, and I paid dearly. My brain felt like someone shat in my head, gave it neurons and called it good. My stomach felt like a sockfull of marbles was lodged there. I only found relief in my Aunt’s backyard where she kept a wicker swingset, which I ate, and pooped like a decapitated fire hydrant. The end.
posted by Steve Sheppard @ 12:47 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
"I only found relief in my Aunt’s backyard where she kept a wicker swingset, which I ate, and pooped like a decapitated fire hydrant."
Hahahahahahahahaha
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